Words

I am torn—

            No—shredded

            seems a more apt

            metaphor when

            wholeness asks of me

            to see and to hold the whole—

            the whole—every part and particle.

            Oh, would that I could empty

            as some advise or simply not attach.

            I cannot—at least, not yet—maybe never.

For simplicity’s sake but also to remind myself

            how quickly I distance, turn away from unbearable pain,

            let me reference Auschwitz, not as some icon

            of past atrocities, history’s deadening instruction,

            but as a living, active word, that tells my story

            and I’ll wager yours, as well—

            but that’s to you to figure out.

            Or I could say, entrenched,

            and call up another part of myself

            with eight million particles,

            more or less, snuffed out.

            But lest you think

            I favor darkness

            let me call up your shining eyes

            and see how they, too, are a part of me.

The words I use are legion

            and legions more await.

            How else to tell the tale—

            the story of the whole?

            Each word mine, to mine

            and find myself within

            and never let go

            and grow, then,

            toward wholeness,

            binding each to each

            as one might have bound

            a sheath of wheat

            in the days

            of Brigid.

                                                            BD 1/17/12