If I look inside your soul

What will I see?

Will I feel what you feel?

The colors, like ghost butterflies

Glowing in the dark.

The emotions, like angels and demons

Warring with each other,

For your soul, your heart--

But for whom do they war?

Is it--could it be--

Me?

All the tears ever cried

I caught in my cupped hands;

All the blood ever bled I kissed

To soothe its sorrow. I never understood.

Why things came and went.

Why they were always broken in between.

How I could just let them go,

Like raindrops passing through my fingers.

How to let go a heart, a soul, a life?

It is hard, and strange, and wonderful,

Being attracted to broken things.

It is like watching a storm come

Upon the plains, feeling the wind

Against your face, and the first

Spattering of raindrops, and

Surrendering yourself to it.

I knew it was dangerous, daring

So close to the darkness that is

In broken things, but I was a child.

Like a child who runs outside

To see the lightning, to feel it

Vibrating in her bones, cracking

Its fingers through the sky––

So was I. I was attracted to broken things.

Butterflies’ wings and shattered glass.

I pieced them back together

With infinite tenderness, setting all

The fragments into place.

I tried to stop snowflakes from melting

And roses from losing their petals.

I tried to keep the plants from dying

In the winter, and the snow from

Vanishing in the spring.

I did not understand that there

Is a time for things, a time to come

And a time to go. I did not know why

Even the lightning flickered out

Of the sky, when it had only barely

Come alive.

From when I was little I was different,

Though I didn’t know it at the time.

When I was little I didn’t think why––

I just was. I was attracted to broken things.

Broken hearts and souls and lives.

I wanted to touch them, understand them.

I felt their pain. Like how when you

See a butterfly with a torn wing

You feel its tornness somewhere

Deep inside the colors of your spirit.

But how do you sew back together

The ripped edges of a butterfly’s wing?

So fragile, like snowflakes.

What thread do you use, what needle

For those delicate wounds?

Or the tattered wings of a human soul––

With what do you mend such a tear?

There is no needle and thread

For a broken heart. I never understood––

When I tried to stitch it back together,

It only bled more. Red. Ruby.

Crimson. Carmine. Tears of blood.

Like raindrops on a spring rose

In the dreary light of early morning.

When a heart cries, or a soul,

How do you comfort it?

I am she who walks

In darkness

Below starlight

With angels and demons

Along paths that are lonely

Through shadows

By whispers

Among beams of sunlight

Within shimmers of memory

Between the haunted and the darkling

Toward ghosts and old dreams

Across the forbidden and forsaken

Beside legends

Onto battlefields

Underneath wraiths of cloud

Beyond all shreds of doubt

In front of mirrors all naked

Past swords and all anger

Into blackness

Behind stones and doors

Like a snake

Without fear

Up to edges of glory

From dusty old stairwells

To closets of forgotten dreams

Inside doors always locked

Near murmurs of death

Despite trembling and fear

For all that is good

On all that is earth

Beneath the skies and the gods

Until all comes to naught

Except virtue and vice

Since these are eternal

Under the heavens

Outside of all time

Up under the shells of dead thoughts

Upon the skin of the world

Down under its sinew

Throughout its lands and its peoples

During highstorms and weepings

After the riddens

Above the crashing tide

Against it all, the madness, the bitterness

But also the stillness

In spite of all longing

Instead of all joy

At the threshold of victory

Before the doors of fulfillment

Because of the darkness

Out from the light

Over all these memories and twistings

About things unknowable

Since they are what's worthy

Of all things in life

Off edges bold daring

I am she who walks.

Fortunate

For all of us humans,

Relationships are built

Not only on fulfilled promises,

But on forgiven failures.

For those of you who

Have never failed

And have nothing

To be forgiven for--

Someone please knock them upside the head.

The wisdom of life

Is in acorns and sunlight

And wisps of cloud over the moon.

It's in the wailing of a child,

The bleating of a lamb,

The lonely cry of a wolf to the moon

On a shimmersome winter night.

It's the gleam of virgin snow

And the aching trumpet of the lune;

It's the tinkling melody

Of sunlight on dandelions

And on the slithersome, coy fish

Gliding beneath the dimpled stream.

Wisdom is the fear and determination

In the eyes and clutching arms

Of a mother as she clasps her babe

To her breast and rocks him,

Back and forth, back and forth,

As something dark and faceless

Moves in the night outside.

Wisdom is the throbbing of a heart.

It's the awe in the eyes of the girl

As she watches the eagle wheel above;

It's the quivering of a candle

In the dark, quivering at the breath

Of the boy as he holds the candle up,

Feeble and dauntless before the dark,

Pressing into the vast of the unknown.

Wisdom is a smooth white stone

And the sea in a storm

And the slow anger of gentleness

That builds against all that is evil.

It's a lonely boy with hair like fire

Sitting on a nighttime rooftop

Picking the sorrows out of his life

On his lute, sending it's sweet

Strains of music floating out

On the dim fragrant darkness

Of the midnight.

And wisdom, if it is anything,

Is the little wisp of a girl,

A girl pretty as the sun,

With hair like spun gold

Drifting around her

As she clasps her knees

To her chest 

In the shadow of a chimney

And listens, listens, to that sweet

Strain of music,

And wonders, and smiles, and hopes- -