Shattered Pieces

I found myself startled
astonished
and stunned
as I awoke to the reality
of what lie surrounding me.
Shattered pieces of what I had fabricated,
What I thought was authentic and inerrantly stated.
With passing time and heart-wrenching agony
I endeavored to grasp the sobering truth
of this shattered vase,
each fragment noteworthy.

I asked my soul,
Where do I start
to pick up the pieces?
The answer came,
One at a time.
Some trash; others, keep 'em.

Deliberately with focus, I timidly began
God please guide my soul and my trembling grip,
allow me with courage to honor each slip.
Thank you for showing me all is not lost
that the next vase we sculpt is at a great cost,
that your fire will purify each pattern anew
a vessel wrought tenderly
restoring me, embracing you.

august, 2006

I awoke one morning with an image in my mind. I stood in a kitchen, bewildered. I looked around on the floor; it was covered with fragments of a shattered blue vase. The fragments were the residue of what had been my substance, my belief system, my identity.

I felt that everything I thought and believed to be true had shattered.

In reality, not everything had been shattered; yet the core of what I had allowed to become me, the foundation of my substance was fractured, obliterated into 1000's of fragments. How could I ever organize the scramble and make sense of the loss?

Thus this poem was born. I posted it on an online forum and someone pointed out that the shape of the poem looked like a vase. Ha! I hadn't noticed.

It is now 2008, a little over two years after the penning of this piece. I still feel shattered. Cleaning up a blasted foundation with its demolished edifice structure takes a lot of time. There are pains to be honored and treasures to be crowned.

Lately I've thought about the vase. Had my belief/identity structure been a pillow, it wouldn't have shattered with the fall. Vases are rigid; pillows are pliable. An analogy can only be taken so far. As humans, we need both vases and pillows.