The wound is the place where the light enters you.
—Rumi
Even knowing that a wound becomes
an entry point for light, I do not want
the wound. I have been wounded, am
wounded, and yes, I have felt the light
touch even the most vulnerable places
with inconceivable tenderness,
but tonight I am not strong enough
to pray that the wound stays open.
Tonight all I want is for the ache
to stop, not just for me, but for the whole
aching world. Light is not all
that enters the wound. Any orchardist
can tell you what happens to an injured fruit.
Is it so wrong to want to ripen?
I can see my ideas are small. I go to push them
out of the way and I am dwarfed by them.
How strange to pray that I might want to pray
for a wound to stay open. One day,
perhaps, we will all have been wounded
enough that we will be made entirely of light.
One day, perhaps, it will be more painful
not to be wounded, not to be open
to anything that arrives to enter.