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| Photo by John Bakator on Unsplash |
Jane Hirshfield is an American poet, essayist, and translator. Poet Kay Ryan described her as "that rare thing in contemporary American life, a true person of letters--an eloquent and exacting poet, first, but in addition the author of enduring essays and influential translations and anthologies."
There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down--
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.
And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,
as all flesh
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest-
And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.
For What Binds Us
Jane Hirshfield
As always, Reese at Typings has shared a poem. Go read it and enjoy.
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