"Yet when I fell I found I rose again"

The Rest of Me

If sawn in half you would still be all there
One in two places and both at half price
Assuming it was a good magician
Who undertook to slice your rump roast rare
Bodies divided against themselves find
(Although breaking up can be hard to do)
The foot end follows the end with the mind
And getting back together is so nice
You get to reacquaint yourself with you
It only takes one half to break the ice

But now I avoid it nevertheless
Under the care of the great physician
Although it has happened (if not onstage)
Both ends of me enjoy connectedness
And I no longer go to magic shows
Nor would I volunteer now to be sawn
I did it once but would not do it twice
Life is fragmented enough heaven knows
And most of the good magicians have gone
Perhaps like me they went on pilgrimage

It might have been only my heart to be
Sawn through and not really magic at all
It took awhile to find the rest of me
To reunite the pieces afterward
Scattered by stagecraft and chicanery
In time to take a bow in time to fall
An autumnal leaf or a wounded bird
By instinct to meet my mortality
It seemed a magic trick but it was not
It left its mark on me (not without pain)

Yet when I fell I found I rose again
Caught by the great physician I forgot

+Steven Curtis Lance



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