We hear that there are some

broken

Hurting and not helped

Grieving and not relieved

ones who

Never really breathed without

gasping

Every day is another affliction

Every moment another wound

these are

The ones who dare speak the

question

We all hear it in our sleep

We all think it in our souls

never

But only the crushed will cry out

And only the broken will ask

hurting

I’m bleeding and there’s no

bandage

The surgeon left me open

The doctor didn’t care

snowy

Hope flows mixing with

red blood

White

Red

These things that we see

This pain that we bleed

It’s been said before

The white represents

Another loss and another image

We would never willingly

offer

Our hands to the slaughter

Our breath to the pain

rather

It’s forced from our lungs

It’s stolen from our hands

but yet

This one before the after

This God before mankind

dying

We cry out against the pain

how could

Anyone brave it selflessly

Leaving his own rights

In the dust, himself

Choosing humiliation

Leaning his body into slivers

His skin spilts

no one

Ever saw such a man

back now

Remember the start of our

questions

The why’s of the world

and how

You didn’t keep them in

anymore

Because courage inspires more

asking

The crushed ones beg for truth

They need to know the purpose

of pain

How can we know the reason

why hurt

Steals our innocence

Forces harm upon us

tell me

Somehow I believe the answer

Isn’t really here but somewhere

above

Those clouds that rise

fuchsia

Hiding above the pink

Red

White

Back to the drops of blood

coursing

Down that slivered cross

Here there is a question

forsaken

Why has he been forgotten

but choices

Let to this in love

Yes

Now

Truth hides and we look

vainly

Everywhere but its home

searching

Never finding that it lives

within

Our hearts were written by One

who knows

The quest is never finished

The hunt is always on but

somehow

I lost my taste for guts and blood

watching

That man bleed out

breathing

A gasp of bitter air

As the broken cried

As the wounded wept

He shouldered it

carrying

Every torment we gave and

knowing

We would give still more

As our cries reach past the the pink

above

Shooting farther than the sky

White

Red

Red

White

Blend to show the worst

becomes

The gifts I never deserved

The hurt becomes my treasure

scarring

My soul with gold

Turning my red blood

Pink

And my black heart

White.

 

 

 

I like to say that poetry doesn’t give us answers. Rather, for every question it does answer, it asks five more.

Questions are powerful. They allow us to phrase our deepest insecurities and doubts. They force us to come out of ourselves. They allow us to seek truth deeper and listen instead of always talking. I often find myself trying to have all the answers, trying to be right. But maybe, instead of rushing to find an answer, we need to appreciate the beauty of the question.

So instead of hastily trying to make up good answers or rushing to find someone who has all the right answers to the “why’s of the world,” let’s ask the  questions we fear.

(If you missed last week’s post, we’re all in the same boat since there wasn’t one! I was too sick to post. As my friend Sara says, the funny thing about writing about chronic illness is that you have a chronic illness, and it sometimes gets in the way. That goes for a lot of trials, I think.)