Ten of SwordsWounded Healer
It's been a while since I've kissed the scars
Of someone I love. The indentation in your leg,
The star shape to the left of your navel,
The weal sewn over your heart. No more
Delicate fingertips and wide-eyed awe here.
When you first know a body, you count the scars,
You wonder over them, you hear every story
These marks tell. You are hungry for the news.
You would push the point of your tongue
Into a tiny, still-red canyon, mining
For information, for emotion, for the undeniable
Truths of the past. Now it's an act of faith
To overlook what hurt you so long ago.
It's tempting for us damaged
To worship the wounds, you know.
So I resist, slide my lips quickly over and past
Those places, over and past for you.
These next few moments are what I live for.
The interpretation of this card, counterintuitive as it may seem, is that this could be the card of highest revelation and enlightenment in the tarot. The woundedness forces the subject into deep inner knowing. Think of the swords as acupuncture needles along a meridian, and it makes more sense. His head is turned away from blame or martyrdom and toward the clearing skies.
3 comments:
Hmmmm. I'm not sure about that analogy being a good thing. I tried acupuncture for a month, 8 sessions. The first session was nirvana and produced my first pain free day in well over a decade. The second session made me nauseous for a week. By the 8th session I was yelping in pain when the needles were inserted.
Something new - more prose-poetic than your prior work. Will you follow this vein? & I love the evolution of "mining" into "faith." Seems quite appropriate somehow.
It makes me think about which mean more to us, the scars we have borne or the kisses. I dwell more on the scars, I wish I knew why. Immaturity I suspect.
"You would push the point of your tongue...." What is it in your imagery that evokes a child with a popsicle, or someone too callow to understand that they are devouring in a way? & why is this act so close to our prime gesture of affection? Like the acupuncture needle - things containing their opposite, etc.
Another of your poems about the maturation of love & I hope to see more.
@slothrop: yes, prosy! i'm thinking i might need to take a form workshop or something just to get some discipline going here.
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