PAPER POETRY SERIES: WABI-SABI: 4th POEM
A Posture of Hands
Beauty in the Unknown : Wabi-Sabi
But I have hands with tremors honed to a pianist's feathering ache to play, by 20 milligrams of propranolol downed with my rising cough each morning. A small, but spiking taste - like a doll-sized coin of powder-pressed bleach - in my haste to smother the pill in my body and pretend that the no-known cause diagnostic isn't within my hands’ reach to understand.
My house isn't a temple and my hands don't tremble with anticipatory joy when I will my walls to straighten - my posture to perfection - My feet to flatten into the floor my vain mind yet sluggishly, to vanquish a ferris wheel of thoughts, bowing into my stomach and back up And I don't will my soul to shutter my ego nor my spirit to take a stand against my pride.
I don't seek a corner to privately pray, nor do I sew pockets into burdened buildings, otherwise sweating from the strain of overwhelming people, carrying torches, and swelling as a fire of innumerable, invisible flames.
But it is, it is, and I do, I do. I see the slack stitching from unshakable hands, shaking, as I stretch my joints from a posture of branches in the wind. And I collapse the walls between seeking the unknowable and playing the part of a porcelain doll in a stranger's land of pretend.
And my hands hold fast to steepling — Yet, though reverently, I part with the knots and my fingers fold around my isolated torch; and out of this tower, I sprint to a shadowed place of stories left untold.
Wabi-Sabi (beauty in imperfection) ~Written by Chloe P. Hawes
This poem is the fourth and the last in the Wabi-Sabi series run by Paper Poetry. Wabi -Sabi is a Japanese concept meaning beauty in imperfection. You are welcome to explore my preception of beauty in imperfection in the below poems.
Editorial Note: Paper Poetry publication runs a themed poetry series every month. If you wish to be a part of Paper Poetry series, please email [email protected] with the subject line “Poetry Series writer request”