In loved ones’ wounds I come again
through living love, to painful sigh
of what the wounds protect, provide,
and hold as true, though they truly lie.
And lie they will as the light was bent
that made young days suffused with pain;
turned friend to foe, and foe to friend,
and circled to the wound again.
I beg a rose for petals, soft
as anything can line a wound
and lay them gently on what bleeds
to let a different truth be known.
The colors run, all roses sing
and shed thorns, ne’er to strike again
that wounds may heal, that you may rise
refreshed, as from the first Spring’s rain
And I stand at the jagged edge
of what kept bleeding as you grew
I love the things you cannot love;
I love those who have wounded you.
2006
Copyright Stephen Bolles
All rights reserved.