The LORD is near the brokenhearted;
He saves those crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18, HCSB
January
for B.
How many times can a heart be broken
And mended
And remain a heart
And not a mass of scar tissue
Too tough yet to beat?
Seven times?
Seventy times?
Seventy times seven times?
I had a teacup once,
Translucent porcelain
So delicate that its cobalt lace and roses
Shone through to the inside,
In pale shadow,
Like a pencil sketch
Of a full-color photograph.
It was my favorite cup
For tea--
A sister gift,
A happy memory of a birthday past.
But it broke,
Betrayed by its own delicate beauty
In a rough-and-tumble cargo hold
On a flight
To a new home
Halfway round the world.
My husband mended it;
It looked as whole as before,
But when I poured hot water over the tea leaves,
Amber liquid bled
From unhealed capillaries
Our eyes had not detected.
A teacup no longer—
A pencil cup now.
Still serviceable,
Still beautiful,
But not entirely reparable.
How, then, with a heart?
Do the fissures no one sees
Until the heat comes
Ever fully fuse again?
Or can a new heart be had—
One of sterner stuff,
Not so brittle as to shatter
In life’s blows and buffetings?
In life’s blows and buffetings?