The Thing About Healing

The thing about healing

is there will be a morning

when you will wake up

thinking you have settled

into a new home on

your map when suddenly

a whisper or a breeze

or a long ago

remembrance that has

lived quietly in your hips

will send you to your knees.

You will, at first, feel so

disoriented that you don’t

recognize your place in things.

You will, at first, feel so

untethered that you cannot

see when or what or who

has caused such

shattering devastation

when just the other day

you felt so at home in your

own heart that birdsong

filled your chest.

The thing about healing

is that sometimes we

must have our breath

stolen in such a way

that we find a new

way of breathing.

A new way of being.

Our bodies will try

in their way to speak

sweetly to us with gentle

nudges and soft reminders,

knowing a new gate lies

ahead that will need

our attention,

that will need our devotion,

that would need us to abandon

the safety nets of routine.

Holding a matchstick just

close enough for us to feel

the warmth,

but ignore the warning.

And then when they see

that gentleness will not do,

they will burn the house to the ground.

They will require that we rebuild

placing ever so tenderly

one small brick at at time.