Prompt Challenge | Know Thyself Heal Thyself
Blessed, Blemished, Broken-Hearted
Poem on mixed blessings
Blessed, yes, but blemished, cracked, broken- hearted.
Blessed with an agile body, competent, with only one major, lasting injury — a cracked shoulder from a fall decades ago, damning my once deadly throwing-arm into early athletic retirement.
The eyes are gone with studying, so much studying, sharpening my wit and deepening my understanding with classics, and dim, dim with writing, and working on computer screens.
Cursed, cursed with busted relationships, dead friends, debts that have enslaved me to bad jobs, and cursed, always cursed, with the losing lottery numbers.
But blessed, blessed with a loving partner, blessed with a passion for literature, cooking, music, art, dance, travel, nature, comedy, life.
Blessed with birds on my balcony, baked pancakes on weekends, trees, flowers, bees, even in this climate change age, even in this cramped inner-city apartment, even with rampant covid.
And cursed, of course cursed, with melancholy dread of war, faction, arms race, disease, eternal human suffering.
I cannot separate the blessings from the curses, and though this blessed beating living heart is pumping blood, it does its slow pumping as a beaten, bruised and broken heart behind a crooked rib cage that will one day be bones for wolves and organs for wild birds.
Blessed transformation, cursed metamorphosis, incredible evolution, awful degeneration — the bipolar gods have sewn and carefully knitted the cells of evil inside every miraculous good.
It remains to be seen whether I am blessed or cursed to be both blessed and cursed, but I will take it as a blessing to even be able to ask the question.
Taking up the second part of Ravyne Hawke’s bonus prompt challenge, I want to share a poem I read today I felt more blessed than cursed by, a brave poem by Zaywa Mariush that descends into the heart of dread and darkness.
I was in a dark mood when I read it, and it seemed to meet me where I was and had the blessed effect of making me feel warmer and lighter and less alone in my darkness. Here it is below:
It is my hope it will move you as it moved me, especially for those who find joy to be an increasingly elusive substance in these difficult times.
© Carlo Zeno 2022
_____________________
Thank you for reading, and thank you to Ravyne Hawke, Diana C., Spyder, and jules at KTHT for continuing to provide a great publication. If you’d like to support, you can do so here, or read two more pieces below 🙏
