RECOVERY
by David Radavich
Break into pieces
and the pot will shatter
its shards
wherever the earth
will collect them again,
where all fragments
wither, knowing this soil
of the forgotten
over-trod by generations
who feast on time
as if they had it all to themselves,
the débris of the heart left
for grave-robbers to discover
yet I turn in my hand
this one blue triangle over
that must have graced
someone’s living and now mine
where the absence was
I claim
and declare it
beautiful and incomplete,
hoping for fingers
finally
to clench all indignities
Published in Red Hawk Review (2007); rpt. Welcoming Hope: Poems for Those in Need, eds., Lora Homan Zill & Ellen G. Olinger (2007).