Scars' Perpetual Bliss
by Odin Roark

Our surface etchings
How quiet the disfiguring moves
Skin's tenacity ever protective
Even as tissue of smiles eventually
Becomes but canyon topography of times past

Leisurely proceeds savage healing beneath
Bombarded with nature's unexpected
Aging platelets shift
Taking their time
Knowing we wait
Uplifting sorrows once buried
Making molten the flow
Once contained and hardened

Whether by deed
Word
Or thought
Wounds start open
Their scars knowing patience
Art rendered of the dreaded kind

And then...

A day finally arrives
Scars begin to shrivel
Age becomes its own embrace
The earned chameleon friendship
A cycle complete
The rebirth of crying
The wrinkled baby awaiting protection

This time
With the long sleep
Poised at the threshold
Where awakening
Remains unnecessary
Smile muscles mix with sadness
One's completed resonance becomes
All as one
Once more