Broken Things

(I've been looking through a file folder called "Things I wrote". Here's one of the things I found.)

BROKEN THINGS

Things get broken along the way--
plates, window panes, sun glasses, bottles and bones.
It's just the way things 'happen',
as time passes and gravity works.
Promises and vows belong in there as well.
There is no limit to broken things--
life as we know it is that:
broken things. Move on. Move on.

The wing of a butterfly, or a bird....
And nothing much to do except mourn and move on.
Friendships and relationships are different--
they get broken too, but they consume our concentration,
and call us to a different level of concern,
since we long for everything to fly again....

The long treasured Christmas ornament
falls to the floor and shatters into sharp shards.
Gone forever--though deeply harbored in memory
and the heart.
Swept up and thrown away. Move on.
Move on....

A love--a connection--of over 40 years
could fill a room, a house, eternity
with broken things.
How intimate and clumsy we become
when decades measure commitment.
But no less committed, no less in love.

All I can give you this year
is my heart--it is all that is left of me
that is not broken yet.

It is fragile, tender, straining to be whole.
Hold it like a small, speckled egg,
if you will, of some
exotic, unknown fowl.

Treasure it, guard it.
It beats for you.
It is yours,
forever....
Move on.

12/20/07