"When you return, sweaters will unravel"
The Birth of Venus, Alexandre Cabanel, 1875
When You Return
by Ellen Bass
Fallen leaves will climb back into trees.
Shards of the shattered vase will rise
and reassemble on the table.
Plastic raincoats will refold
into their flat envelopes. The egg,
bald yolk and its transparent halo,
slide back in the thin, calcium shell.
Curses will pour back into mouths,
letters un-write themselves, words
siphoned up into the pen. My gray hair
will darken and become the feathers
of a black swan. Bullets will snap
back into their chambers, the powder
tamped tight in brass casings. Borders
will disappear from maps. Rust
revert to oxygen and time. The fire
return to the log, the log to the tree,
the white root curled up
in the un-split seed. Birdsong will fly
into the lark’s lungs, answers
become questions again.
When you return, sweaters will unravel
and wool grow on the sheep.
Rock will go home to mountain, gold
to vein. Wine crushed into the grape,
oil pressed into the olive. Silk reeled in
to the spider’s belly. Night moths
tucked close into cocoons, ink drained
from the indigo tattoo. Diamonds
will be returned to coal, coal
to rotting ferns, rain to clouds, light
to stars sucked back and back
into one timeless point, the way it was
before the world was born,
that fresh, that whole, nothing
broken, nothing torn apart.
from Like a Beggar, Copper Canyon Press, 2014
Creative Invitation
Where did you learn about repair? Who taught you to use epoxy glue, a sewing needle, apology, duct tape? It can feel exuberantly satisfying to fix something that’s broken. Extending life just like we had a wand. Not everything is better off discarded; with each discard, we begin the consumption churn of a search for something new—and have to bury the old thing out of sight. With repair, however, we tell the things in our life that they’re worthy of sticking around, even imperfectly.
Is there a person or a nation you’ve long thought was broken? Is there a relationship you found unmendable? An object that you can’t revive but can’t let go of?
Tell us of its resurrection, what you love about it, what would happen on the best day of its life. What will make the veins and cracks in the vessel run gold like kintsugi pottery?