Wounds Into Scars
by Odin Roark

It takes not a wise man to know
What we resist
Will persist

So goes the healing process
Just as a tree
With its heart and initial carvings
Carries its scars with little notice
So too might we carry our own
Those verbal
Physical
Spiritual
Lacerations
Often a suffering performance
As if they were for public view

The small child knows early
“Kiss the booboo”
And mothers are quick to reinforce
The child’s need

But as we grow
We forget the essence of a mother’s care
The mother’s empowering way
To repair with love

Instead

Many wear pain and sorrow on their lapels
Trusting a confused society
Often glorifying pain
Placing many an open wound
Before audience-sympathy
Unknowingly substituting exploitation
For the teachings of maternal empathy

How wanting one’s instincts can become
Innate reaction to hurt
Once serviced by natural response
Too often succumbs to ego pampering
Rather than seeking the axiom therein

That place where accepting the hurt
Seduces pain into questioning
Bringing to bear
The precarious courage
To learn the lesson
Of self-love’s curative

Might it be
Like mother nature’s engraved trees
At any age affliction reminds us
Growing is still the purpose
Injuries and scars inevitable

Like the tree
Perhaps it’s really a question
Of how we absorb
And treat ourselves
From within