It was a cold day, but no new snow. I just took my puppy for a last spin around the backyard, and the moon and stars looked like crystal in heavens. When my dog barked, I thought the sky would splinter into pieces and rain down on my head.
Now that the first week of March is over and Lent has begun, I can feel the world shifting into spring mode, despite the recent blizzard. Something ending, something beginning. (Don’t worry. I’m not dumb enough to think that we’re done with the white stuff, However, the sap is starting to flow, metaphorically, at least.)
So much in this world is broken right now. I’m not going to get political here, but most of my faithful disciples will agree with that statement. Russia is still in Ukraine. Trump still wants to turn Gaza into a luxury resort. And the pope is still in the hospital.
Yet, out of brokenness comes healing. I truly believe that.
Sharon Olds struggles with her daughter.
The Sign of Saturn
by: Sharon Olds
amber black look, like my father
about to pass out from disgust, and I remember
she was born under the sign of Saturn,
the father who ate his children. Sometimes
the dark, silent back of her head
reminds me of him unconscious on the couch
every night, his face turned away.
Sometimes I hear her talking to her brother
with that coldness that passed for reason in him,
that anger hardened by will, and when she rages
into her room, and slams the door,
I can see his vast blank back
when he passed out to get away from us
and lay while the bourbon turned, in his brain,
to coal. Sometimes I see that coal
ignite in her eyes. As I talk to her,
trying to persuade her toward the human, her little
clear face tilts as if she can
not hear me, as if she were listening
to the blood in her own ear, instead,
her grandfather’s voice.
Olds is writing about the brokenness of her own childhood, and I think she’s a little frightened that her daughter has inherited that brokenness. It’s sort of the way I’m always on the look out for signs of bipolar in my son and daughter because of my wife’s mental health struggles.
But, as I said above, brokenness begets healing, just as sure as winter begets spring. That’s what this time of year is all about: something beautiful pushing through the frozen earth to reach for the sun. Hope never dies. It just lies fallow every once in a while.
Since late November, this winter season has been difficult for me. I’m still climbing my way out of a major depressive episode. I have more bright days than dark days now. I notice things like snowbanks glowing blue, clouds turning orange at sunset, my favorite songs playing on the radio. I am surrounded by possibility, and for that I am truly grateful.
I may still be broken, but I’m on the mend.
Saint Marty wrote a poem about brokenness tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:
In the poem, “For practice, let something stay broken,” Molly Tenenbaum writes, the faucet’s drip keeps you waking. Write a poem about something that’s broken, whether a relationship or an item in your house. What lesson can you discover from this broken item? If you can’t think of anything broken, find something in your home you don’t need—like a chipped plate, a paper clip, a scratched frame—and break it. Write about the experience of breaking a material item and the details of the moment, including how it felt, what it sounded like when it broke, and what it looked like in its brokenness.
Broken
by: Martin Achatz
Linoleum on the bathroom floor
buckles, almost breathes
under my bare feet like a living
thing. The kitchen faucet drips
unless the spigot and handle
line up just so, one to the left
sink, one to the right, a balance
almost political between
abundant water and drought.
The lamp in the living room decides
when it wants to shine or remain
dark, the way my teenage son
waffles between loving me
and wanting me assassinated.
Joseph in the manger we display
at Christmas has lost his staff,
his decapitated head glued
back on his shoulders, hairline
scar circling his neck as if
he’s had surgery on his carotids.
So much is broken at home,
from the front porch light to
shower drain, an endless
list of needed repairs
that sometimes keeps me
awake, listening to make sure
the furnace kicks in on frozen
January nights. Yet, this brokenness
reminds me that I am still
needed, that the world, however
splintered, can be fixed if
I have the correct crescent wrench
or roll of duct tape. I guess
what I’m talking about is hope,
leaking, clogged, fractured
hope just waiting for me
to pull out my toilet plunger
and get to work.
❤️JT
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