The Wound
I do not know where the wound first occurred Does it predate my birth A lingering laceration of the spirit That haunts my spirit Festering from generations of neglect. Is this my father’s wound? Is this his father’s wound? Is this wound older even still, Passed through DNA of each generations’s soul? Have I passed this wound to my own son Too late already to save him the pain of This ancestral puncture? Where do I find the injury inside me? Once found, Can I debried this necrosis? Can the generations of scar tissue be cut away to allow exposure and healing? Is there a hand able to reach into this deepest part To apply the healing balm I need? Is this just a game of blame? Seeking answers in generations passed Rather than admitting the wound This wound is self inflicted? Am I the aggressor against my own soul? Did a younger me wield the violence of this stabbing In wishing to severe the umbilical cord Did I slash so violently That my the knife plunged into my own body? Is all this metaphor just too much? Is this wound that haunts me Just beyond my reach The spiritual lingering of my Body being cut into by a surgeons scalpel At the tiny age of six weeks? Years before I could understand This assault was necessary for living? Am I still that unweaned boy? Feeling an incision I can in no way understand or grasp? Even still the question of how to heal this Lingers in my mind? This infancy wound passed physically Also to my son. I speak now into that shadow place Where I know my wound, my father’s, and my son’s all dwell
“I am coming! I have found no healers. So I will be the healer.” “I am coming! I have no found no shamans So I will be the shaman” “I am coming. I have found no balm So I will seek the parts and brew it myself.” As John Bacchus said “If you are not failing regularly You are not being creative enough” I know there will be failure But failure is the force which propels To newer more creative approaches Failure is the darkness which Forces a man to learn what spark will ignite a fire that lights that night. Failures from my past And the failures of my future Will fail themselves To prevent this promise of healing. This wound, the haunt of generations Will find it’s dark corner illuminated Will feel it’s scar tissue removed Will watch an antiseptic applied Will recognize the balm’s protective coating Will sense the wrap of the bandage Will begin healing finally. Be waiting old soul Your sanctuary approaches!
——
Sometimes I write something while journaling and know I want to play with to clean it and turn it into poetry. There was something about this that resisted that idea. I wanted to leave it fragmented and preserve it in the stream of consciousness form that birthed it. Before I started typing my mind was on my son, and I thought what would come out when my fingers hit the keys would be a letter a to him. I poured this out onto the screen instead.
——