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Dear, I don't mind if the world takes
me up
Piece by piece & chip by chip of
skin –
Bloody hollow patch, then scab, then
scar:
I don't mind falling in; I enjoy
falling in,
Feeling strong – I admit it – when the world takes me up,
When the body closes tight (to be
ship-shape again):
First it stings, then it aches, then it
itches a bit.
And then it's new – bright and smooth – nearly ten.
I know deep down that these holes never
grow
All the way back up the scale –
maybe to nine (point-five).
And I have to scrub them clean, so they don't turn
Red & angry. But – dirty me –
don't I feel alive
And full of purpose when I'm healing?
It's not like after a sleepless night
or a cold
Gray morning where I'm tired from my
sins
(My gluttony, my sloth). When I have holes
To fill – well, of course it was
stupid
To go running blind and barefoot in the
dark,
But – I'm learning, patch by patch: I rip
off the
Skin, leave it by the branch. And I
walk on the mark.
Daylight savings time. So a 6pm dusk run became a 6pm night run – and in the gully, it was so dark that I don't even know for sure what put the hole in my right foot's arch. Looks like the jagged bite of wood, though. And I couldn't see that it was bleeding, but I did feel the loose skin (ripped it off) and felt the spot grow sticky (so I knew there was at least a little leak). Made the deeper sand uncomfortable to run on, but made the ocean just that much more refreshing to splash on. So it grows – 7 November 2012
ReplyDelete*Thanks, Les (Inspiration Point), for helping to make this collage full.
I absolutely love this poem!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if this was your exact intention, but I found when reading it that each side of the crack could be read independently of the other. I know that each side is not perfect, but the ideas flow together and sound really cool :) And I love that the whole poem is a healing process, that the two halves are slowly working their way back together but aren't in any hurry because the healing process is enjoyable in itself. It is ok that the poem is not completely fused together by the end-- that there are still signs of where the crack was-- because we have taken the wound to be part of who we are and have shaped ourselves around it. I love this idea.
Thank you for your creation :)
-Kate S.
Thank you for liking it ... hope you remember it next time you slice yourself open on something: a few wet drips for the world, and the rest in a shell for you.
DeleteOnce again, I have found so much to relate to in your poetry. I apologize if I misinterpret, but I love, in the beginning of the poem, the exchange between the world/nature and the individual; how the world may injure us, how we sacrifice a piece of ourselves to the world, but in exchange, we are granted the privilege to “fall into” nature’s embrace. We become enveloped by nature and are absorbed little by little into the world. From these “falling ins,” we feel a sense of fortitude and are emboldened by our experiences.
ReplyDeleteI may not have put a hole in my foot, but I too have endured the sting, ache, and itch of the recovery process from doing something I am passionate about. Just as you love barefoot running, I love gymnastics. After I injured my elbow and went through surgery, the recovery process was extremely long and painful. However, during that time when I was healing, I was “full of purpose” and strength to overcome this setback and return to the sport I love. Even though I had to hold myself back when the pain was too unbearable, it didn't stop me from continuing to try. I don’t know if this is what you meant in lines 11-13, but in those lines, I saw the desire to mend the foothole and at the same time, an irresistible compulsion to continue to run barefoot/dirty your foot despite the injury. I also empathize with that paradoxical sense of “feeling alive” and gaining more determination as you feel your injury improving, doing the very action that hurt it in the first place (if that makes sense?). My cartilage in my elbow is fully fused now, but like you said in your poem, “I know deep down that these holes never grow / All the way back up the scale- maybe to nine (point-five).” Every day, when I put pressure on my elbow, I still feel its weakness, the joint even giving out on me sometimes; but like Kate commented above, those wounds and weaknesses become part of our identities and help us become stronger and more resilient individuals.
To me, the last stanza contrasts the 1st stanza, in that, before, “the world [took you] up / Piece by piece and chip by chip of skin;” but now, you confidently “rip off the / Skin, [and] leave it by the branch.” While the first stanza shows passiveness and a sense of attrition, the last stanza portrays boldness, conviction, and finality. The last stanza also reminds me of what we gymnasts fondly call “rips”: calluses on our hands that tear open, exposing patches of raw skin. Almost always, the skin is dangling by the edge and we are forced to cut or “rip off the skin” so it doesn't peel back farther. Once the skin is ripped off, we continue to swing bars, despite the sting, just as you continue to “walk on the mark.” Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed not only the poem’s depiction of the restoration process, but also the poem’s exploration of the underlying determination and passion fueling the healing process.
On a side note, concerning your collage, I love how you blended the hole in your foot into the natural setting to mirror the knotholes on the tree branches :) Thank you for sharing your work.
Actually, only the top knot on the tree trunk at right is part of the tree ... the other two are additional photos of the foothole as it healed up :)
DeleteI'm glad you find personal connections with my poems. Annette; I try to write on relatable subjects (mostly just as they happen to me).
This poem initially caught my eye because of the formation of it. From first glance I thought it was supposed to be shaped like a rod of lightning. Upon looking at the title, I was able to realize that it is a foothole. I think the meaning is very poetic because it addresses that there will be times for hurting but there will also be times for joy and healing. Although the connotation of foothole and falling are negative, I feel like this poem is ironically positive. It addresses the dark times that are inevitable to come but it also tells that there is a time of healing and one will regain one’s strength eventually. The second stanza addresses the path of life, relationships, jobs, and everything with an expiration date. It starts negative but progresses through the process of recovery and ends in a bright way when hope is restored. The next stanza also portrays the important life lesson that there will never be a time when things go back exactly to the way they were. From every poor experience is a lesson and most of the time the lesson comes at the expense of a failing situation. People learn the most from their failures. Everything that has happened to someone, is happening to someone, and will happen to someone all affect the person he or she is. People are an accumulation of the things they have learned in life. That is the way it always will be. Stanzas three and four illustrate the idea of “it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all”. It is possible to never undergo extreme hurt but in the end, that is a lonely and mundane life. There is no excitement in doing mediocre things day after day. Feeling the devastating pain of losing something should be worth it, if having it felt just as good. The final stanza portrays this idea that in life, it is up to oneself to discover everything one can. Everyone is blind and confused at first, but that is where the greatest discoveries are made- in the dark.
ReplyDeleteNot meant to represent the hole so much as the gradual closing of it.
DeleteHope you found something worthwhile here.
This poem begins with deep divisions within each line. As the poem progresses, the divisions become smaller and smaller. By the last line, the sentences are only separated by two spaces. The shrinking divisions represent the speaker’s broken toes that slowly heal. However, the “holes never grow / All the way back up the scale” (9-10), so there is still extra space between the words of the last line. Since the speaker’s scars will never fully recover to their original state, they will always remind the speaker of the time he injured himself.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker in this poem describes the recovery of his broken toes. He injured himself while running barefoot in the dark. While the speaker admits his folly, he does not regret his action. His injury causes him to realize that he is fully experiencing life. Running in the dark contrasts the speaker’s “Gluttony, [his] sloth.” (16) The speaker may have injured himself while running, but at least he had enough willpower to perform the action. He did not laze around and give in to “gluttony” and “sloth.”
I would like to add that I enjoyed the imagery of this poem. The line “Bloody hollow patch, then scab, then scar” (3) really paints an image of how the speaker’s toe heals over time.
Well-read ... except for imagining the toes as 'broken.' Unless the break was a compound fracture (which in this case it was not), the description you quoted above would not apply, nor would the title "Foothole." It's about a hole in the skin, filling itself in over time.
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