Community of Broken Things

lessons from times spent living without a home or resources, dedicated to my friends and our children who also live this

I.

 

We did not celebrate Christmas

those years, with family;

the stranger across the table

telling his stories of Viet Nam,

became your uncle, and then

you never saw him again. Maybe

he found a woman; maybe he froze

to death- there was always more

than one way out. It is how things

are; it allows that souls without

backbones do not carry the torches

whose light, we follow.

 

II.

 

Those who know nothing of

real wisdom, tell you, always:

you are here because you are

simply. Not. Good. Enough.

What they do not say: the best

are those, on whom the world

always turns its back. If your

star is too bright; if you attract

too many too soon, they spit you

out into the street.

 

III.

 

The ancient ones, the ones

who do not fear the light of any man

or woman; say, the woman

who has not given birth biologically,

by right becomes Mother

to all children who feel abandoned-

orphaned, or otherwise.

Likewise, us children, young

and adult, left to wander lost through

the labyrinth of human indifference:

we got to choose, which heroes

and heroines, become pillars

of mothers and fathers in the halls

of Life. It is the justice of the meek.

 

IV.

 

It does not matter what brand

of mattress I slept on;

there were nights

it was a hayloft in a barn,

or a shelter beneath a rock

in the forest. I had value

because my hands were made

to do God’s work. Someone or

something smiled each day I lived,

because of me; nobody could

take away the joys I had already

collected, like so many pennies,

in the jar I finally broke one day

to buy a ticket to a place

that I call, home.

 

V.

 

I was enough;

I was the mouth for things that have

no voice, I was the heart for things

that walk unloved. A stunted tree,

a few thousand pigeons. A dog

that favored his left front paw, the

man who favored his right leg

and sold watches by the river.

Nobody watched over us, so we

watched over each other-

a community of broken things

we still hold each other’s hands

until the day, we are called

to inherit the dust of which,

the earth itself, was made.

 

 

Lessons from the years I spent, without a place to call home. In honor of the lost children everywhere. Especially for Dan, who taught us that there is great power in giving it all away.

 

 

Author's Note

translated from my original in Spanish; written to be presented for a community of adolescents living in orphanages

Reviews

[Kay Salisu Titilola]

hmmm... I don't just know what to start with.
All I have to say is that it is too phenomenal for me to say something on.
Kudos to you!