Kintsugi

 

 

(Japanese art of repairing broken objects, often ceramic pottery or glass. Traditionally, gold lacquer is used to piece shards together again, creating a more beautiful object through the acts of breaking and repair.)

 

We are all broken pieces,

Lying asunder.

Our limbs, veins, sinews

Scattered on pilgrimage paths

But mostly, it is our hearts

Broken into invisible shards

Like fallen houses into disrepair

Though the walls may seem intact

 

Some of us have been battered

By storms we couldn’t face,

Or by disguised vandals

Whom we welcomed as our own

Yet most of us lie broken

From within, not without

Our own selves our nemesis

Imploding from within in grief

 

But it is not in lying broken

That our faults lie –

Our sorrows burden for

We await for ourselves

To turn anew, reborn in enchantment

Or worse still, we await for others

To put us together

To join us once again

 

But the truth, sad though it is

That none will rescue us

In fact, none it is

That can put us together at all

But ourselves –

We need to gather our broken bones,

Our hearts, our minds

Whatever remains of mine-swept fields

 

And bit by bit, piece by piece

Join us back –

Those who can,

Glue themselves with gold,

Others with silver, bronze or lead

But it is not glinting metal alone

That joins

The thousand broken parts

 

Despite our penury

We join ourselves with our tears

With our blood, with our sweat and grime

And stare back in disbelief

Kintsugi –

Standing whole again,

Disfigured, misshapen

Laced with a thousand scars

 

But together in one piece

Looking even more handsome

Like survivors of war

Plastered in a million ways

While the wounds remain

Healed, joined, slowly in time

As we stare back at our days

In the kintsugi of our golden dusk…

 

17^th January 2025