ONE MORE TIME
by Mark Nepo
When willful, we think
that truth moves from
our head to our heart
to our hands.
But bent by life,
it becomes clear that
love moves the other way:
from our hands to our
heart to our head.
Ask the burn survivor
with no hands who dreams
of chopping peppers and
onions on a spring day.
Or the eighty-year-old jazz
man who loses his hands
in a fog. He can feel them
but no longer entice them
to their magic.
Or the thousand-year-old
Buddha with no arms
whose empty eyes will
not stop bowing to the
unseeable center.
Truth flows from us,
or so we think, only
to be thrown back
as a surf of love.
Ask the aging painter
with a brush taped to his
crippled hand—wanting,
needing to praise it all
one more time.
While my own hands are temporarily (I hope!) out of commission I thought I would share this poem by Mark Nepo. I first read this poem many years ago but find new meaning in it now as I recover from my accident.
Photo and poem courtesy of VIVIDLIFE.ME.
Wind Rush 
Poetry can bring us comfort when we need it and remind us of the universal nature of our condition. Thanks for sharing Mark Nepo’s poem with us. I Wish you a speedy recovery.
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Thank you, Joan. Nepo is one of my favorites; he’s a transplant to MI like me! I start PT this week. I am hopeful that all these little nerves and bones in my hands will become stronger each day. I hope you are well dear friend.
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Great truth for you (and all of us) in this poem!!
Sent from my iPhone
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Lovely!
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