Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.
Laurence Musgrove: Healing
Have you ever thought
that you weren’t healing
as fast as you thought
you should, like this dot
on my chin I noticed
the other day with no idea
how it happened or when,
just a little dab of red
I have to shave around
on the days I decide to shave,
and wouldn’t you agree
we heal up sooner (mostly)
than later, scarred or not,
because it’s what the body
knows better than anything,
like a tree knitting itself
a knot over a lost limb,
the sky returning to blue—
we’re menders (mostly)
unless or until we can’t
and the great bloodstream
we all came from
heals us back home?
~~~~
Copyright 2024 Laurence Musgrove
Laurence Musgrove is a Professor of English and Modern Languages at Angelo State University in Texas.
Discover more from Vox Populi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Yes. Healing often comes to me from the recuperative powers in the body and mind. How this happens is sometimes a mystery, for sure. A deep grief that at one time seemed inconsolable, changed to a new sort of joy: at morning’s coffee, a humorous quip, memories unfolding from the best parts of the past. The mourning-wounds healed, the scars now bring a sense of wonder and bonding with the world. Lovely way the poem feeds that vision… Like Musgrove tells, I feel the final homecoming can be to a place (mostly) of healing, but hope to have many more homecomings before then. As I hope we all do.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Beautiful sentiment, Jim. Thank you. I’ve been very ill the last two months. First, I had shingles (basically, chickenpox for old people). The entire right side of my body was in such pain, I could barely move. After a couple of weeks, I was starting to feel better when I developed covid. After another couple of weeks, I was starting to recover when I developed thrush, a nasty fungus on my tongue and throat caused by the steroids I’d been taking. Today, finally I feel much better. Though exhausted by the ordeal, I can return to my regular life, a little at a time. The experience of being ill has taught me gratitude. My wonderful wife took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself. And I was able to continue my work as a writer and editor during the illness; in fact, this work made me realize how important the life of the mind and imagination is to me… I’m a lucky man.
>
LikeLiked by 4 people
I didn’t know you were going through so many physical challenges and such pain, Michael — how sorry I am for you and how grateful to Eva that she gave you such loving care. What a relief that you’re — finally, finally! — better. And may you regain a solid, long lasting health!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you, my friend!!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for expressing your recent plights, and the gratitude you show for your wife, Eva. Best wishes onward through the whirligig of life….
I feel gratitude for the love of others during times of loss or illness or the larger terrors. It’s like their caring goes beyond sentiments or helping hands, and becomes part of us, right into our internal systems of hope and healing…For them too.
LikeLike
Just cleaning up our yard, returning things to that state of order after Milton, working on it a little at a time as I could gives me hope about something I can’t even explain the importance of.
Its such a timely and beautiful poem and for a perfect moment in my life. Yesterday We found a drowned calf from the storm, felled trees from the wind and we know something is now frozen in loss from the context of our lives. Perhaps that coolness on the air that crept in the window I opened on my way to sleep is that “stream” we ultimately find. It hasn’t visited since last year, but is here at last, again.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Sean, I’m so glad you and yours are well after the ordeal.
>
LikeLiked by 3 people
“we heal up sooner (mostly)
than later, scarred or not,
because it’s what the body
knows better than anything,”
I join Michael in saying how relieved I am you and yours are okay, friend!
LikeLiked by 2 people