how a body learns

to walk around it

The break never begins with noise,
but beneath buckled paint
behind the calendar we stuck
in hopes of growing unto faith
on walls, for blessed are the
fools, drunk on anticipation
of belief.

When it went, we learned to walk
around it, tremors disguised
as ordinary time, Baldwin’s history
sitting in the room until someone
notices the uninvited guest.

No siren sounds, no one is named.
Gravities are rearranged this way.
Pisa’s tower looked just fine
at ribbon-cutting time.

How easy it is, to mistake the wreck
for aftermath, never beginning.
Survivors find the hairline crack
and make a home in the months
before the flood runs.

Blessed the believers who
never
chart the damage, who lean in to
what’s left standing, call it home.

Author: Stacey C. Johnson

I keep watch and listen, mostly in dark places.

9 thoughts on “how a body learns”

  1. chrisnelson61 – Stourbridge, UK – Chris Nelson was born in East Anglia, but grew up in Birmingham when his family relocated when he was still a young child. After leaving school he studied computing at what was then Wolverhampton Polytechnic, before deciding that it was not a career path he wanted to follow. He retrained as a teacher and has taught in a primary school in Dudley since the mid 1980's. He has dabbled in writing short stories since his youth, but has began writing more seriously since the turn of the century. He lives in Stourbridge with his wife and two children.
    chrisnelson61 says:

    Superb piece, Stacey. The cracks do appear deep, deep below the surface, only to be seen by others too late. And what is there for them to do anyway?
    How we try to paper over everything. The key, perhaps, is to recognise the first signs and learn to embrace them as our frailties are what makes us.

    Reply
      1. chrisnelson61 – Stourbridge, UK – Chris Nelson was born in East Anglia, but grew up in Birmingham when his family relocated when he was still a young child. After leaving school he studied computing at what was then Wolverhampton Polytechnic, before deciding that it was not a career path he wanted to follow. He retrained as a teacher and has taught in a primary school in Dudley since the mid 1980's. He has dabbled in writing short stories since his youth, but has began writing more seriously since the turn of the century. He lives in Stourbridge with his wife and two children.
        chrisnelson61 says:

        🙂

  2. michael raven – Twin Cities, MN, USA – Nontraditional scribbler of words; occasionally coherent. Mostly harmless. Author of "galdr: thought + memory".
    michael raven says:

    Relatable on many levels for me, Stacey. This kitsugi we practice at times can be an exhausting exercise.

    Reply

  3. An apt poem for these times we are living through …to call what’s left standing: home, even though that bit of possibility is always in flux. To see this world and ourselves as change-in-motion, the chaos of life, is quite the leveler, a leveler which will never be leveled.

    Reply
  4. KatMorski – Rapid River, MI – Kathryn lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, works as a freelance communicator, writes songs, poems and stories, photographs nature compulsively, and enjoys the company of her husband Steven, their two grown children and their growing families, and a large garden. She performs with daughter Caitlin and son Brian as 'SKI, a group that "folk 'n' rocks"!
    KatMorski says:

    who lean in to
    what’s left standing, call it home
    Thank you. You always find the right place to touch. And sometimes you smash it.

    Reply

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