Glacier N.P., Going-to-the-Sun Road, August 2020 - Photo by Christina Adele Hon
You once told me that the very things I see as “shortcomings”
You see as beautiful, essential parts
Without which I would not be me at all
And because
Your word is a sword
I will take it
And run it across my own
Until it strikes through:
To the part that dances with shadows past
twirling memories back into the forefront
of the stage in my mind
thrusting them again
into the limelight:
Don’t go, please don’t go
Shine again, shine again
I will not call you “toxic nostalgia”
Your new name is treasurer
Because true treasures are not shut away
But looked over
And loved
And how lonely is the life
That will not even examine itself
To the part that makes much meaning of little
and ascribes purpose to all
combing over each detail
squeezing out understanding
until the thing itself is wrung dry:
You cannot pass until
I put you in a blessed place
I will not call you “overthinker”
Your new name is refiner
Because purity is not just stumbled upon
But processed
And proved
And how fragile are the thoughts
That are not tested with fire
To the part that unfurls its wings at a whispering wind
letting the softest breeze
spur feathers to flight
Making great, senseless shapes of small clouds
past, present, and future alike
Roaring at them
Laughing with them
Lifting them high
Or if they are not there yet
Demanding they appear
Bellowing from the skies:
I won’t lose you,
You, greatest of all
I will not call you “false hope”
I will not call you “childish dreaming”
I will not call you “fruitless yearning”
Your name is chutzpah
Because to the world it will seem insolent
A dogged, brash demanding
Or a wild, wayward wandering
All parts, foolish
But imagine
A life without hoping
And thoughts without dreaming
And a soul without yearning
And in that illusion I do find
The most terrible and fearful thing:
The deception of death
masquerading as life
And the loss of myself
The essence of me
Who was born to hope
Who was made to dream
Whose soul yearns because it knows
It is part of a whole,
and set wholly apart:
all parts, holy
Photo by Christina Adele Hon
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