A week ago I wrote a response to Beslan’s recent tragedy. Since then, my reading and reflecting has taken me to other broken places - within myself, within the earth, within other people. Like this week, broken places often leave me quiet.

Poet Jean Janzen writes a poem by this same name - Broken Places - that evokes images I find nourishing at the end of a week like this. The power and gentleness of personified mountains, holding us, baptizing us in their own broken crags: my mind turns to god.

Here is the poem:

We know that the mountains
can’t heal us, even as they stand
beside us, serene after their own
great upheaval. And from the deep,

the hidden springs rise.
“For my irregular heart,” my father
said, soaking in the sulpherous pool,
the rain sizzling around him.

On the other side of the world
Mitsuko and I strip and scrub,
then enter the tranquil heat.
Like sisters, no need to speak,

for the water has claimed us,
holding us above the rush
of the river. All of us shipwrecked,
clutching what we can,

no cure except the final one.
But here, for awhile, our bodies release
the secret aches. Holding nothing
but water in our arms, we lean

against the split and tumbled sides
of rocks, here where the mountain’s heart
spills out, holding us in its own
broken place, the mists rising.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 12th, 2004 at 9:04 am and is filed under Books and Art, Healing, Current Affairs, Religion/Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.