And though I curse you
and drive you and push you,
body, you hold me,
you carry the soul,
you transform the plum
and the leaf into laughter,
you make tears out of water
and wine. You leap
and you slump, you
sing and you hunger,
you skip and run and crawl.
You let me be part of the miracle
when you made a new body within—
building spine and brain and chin
and toe out of broccoli and coffee and toast.
And when I am clumsy,
you wear the scars to remind me
where we have been. You
change, you soften, you rearrange.
You heal, you insist, you rest.
How, after all these years,
do I still find ways to ignore you?
You who have carried me across finish lines,
you who have held the weeping child?
Why, when I look in the mirror,
do I do anything but marvel
at your skill? Imagine, you breathe
without my command. You regenerate cells.
You tell the blood where to go and when.
Oh body, I’m sorry. I have hurt you. And you,
you hold me like the child that I am,
and you breathe me, you teach me,
you let me try again.
So true. So true. Amen!
I was just saying same to someone this past week — I’d fallen last weekend and I carry a huge bruise on my thigh. Like a swallowed tennis ball that wriggled its way down and settled on the side of one of my legs, angry sunset and now all the colors of the rainbow. It hurts, but I am also in awe — again — at the marvel of healing and the intricacies of all the things and muscles and tendons and busy little blood cells and repair-cells and break-down-stuff things that take place to restore broken tissues and guard and inflame and protect and ensure this body, that’s been though much and knows the way home to health, takes the steps needed to make well.
It is an absolute miracle, not to mention an ever-changing canvas of color and hue and depth and 3D manifestation of repair …
All while all the other things this body needs to do – breathe and sleep and pee and move and think and talk and type and laugh and frown and listen and understand and make dinner and wash dishes and wriggle toes and tickle bellies – go one almost undisturbed.
Bodies are amazing.
The end … 😉
Na’ama
Bodies are amazing! Here’s to the crazy rainbow of colors … and all the healing they represent. And here’s to glorious miracle you mention … Thanks, Na’ama! I love this response.
🙂 Glad you liked it. I can go on little soap boxes sometimes (okay, often …) about the small miraculous minutia of life … and it is fun that you ‘get it’!
🙂
Wonderful. I am also amazed by our bodies, and thankful…
Thank you, Ann … as you can tell, perhaps, I led a workshop on writing about the body … I am sure I have written on this prompt at least five times, but it always brings up new things for me. xoxo
I love it, love it! So real, yet so imaginative! How do you do it??
Ha! Well, thank you … I stole the title! From Moyra Donaldson. You can read it here: https://triangulations.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/poetry-sunday/