Sometimes your own scars startle you. Sometimes you wonder why you’re crying after midnight-you wonder where your very first misstep occurred. You might despise the way someone’s face contorts when they are telling you just how wrong you are. Sometimes you can’t keep it all in even when you know it isn’t going to come out right. Sometimes one sentence changes your whole day…for better, or worse.
dbr
Photo Credit: Deanne Brooke Rivera–6.29.11, all rights reserved to deannebrooke.com
Peace in thy hands,
Peace in thine eyes,
Peace on thy brow;
Flower of a moment in the eternal hour,
Peace with me now.
Not a wave breaks,
Not a bird calls,
My heart, like a sea,
Silent after a storm that hath died,
Sleeps within me.
All the night’s dews,
All the world’s leaves,
All the winter’s snow
Seem with their quiet to have stilled in life’s dream
All sorrowing now.
it’s a final sweeping motion that runs over the surface of something…like a lake, but maybe it’s just a river. maybe there are rocks underneath, some that are visible from the shore, from the bank. maybe there are some that you cannot see though, too. then there is a desire to get in the water. there could be a desire to get to the other side. should we go together? i could stay in the water or go to the other side. we could always get back in the water. if you would stay with me there, in that place with the sweeping motion on the surface…i would deal with the cold. i usually want the cold…it wakes me up. people usually talk about the water making them new…but it always takes me back. maybe new again? but never new for the first time, you just can’t get back there.
counting the rocks will keep us busy, we could give them names. we could identify them by their color or by their shape. we could remember them by the wounds they cause. the wounds are all wrapped up for now. wouldn’t you miss them if they were gone? it’s good to heal like this. sometimes i’m not sure if you can see it that way…but the hurt is only real when the healing starts. it has to be that way.
you can argue away all of the insensitivities…i’m just going to start remembering the verses. the embraces that come creeping up first in my mind. i’m replacing everything that never frayed…because those things are not worth holding. i’ll hold the mistakes and the harsh words, the expressions you showed to me that you never meant to give away. you gave them to me, and i’ll keep them all.
i’ll keep the little arguments too, the little sorry and the little scar. we’ll get dressed up and you will touch my face. we will smile at the same time…and forget every other place.
d.b.r.
12.29.09
