Some of My Worst Wounds

I really love this poem by Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison CD. For me, it speaks to our ability to overcome, to look beyond our hurts and see possibility, to “suck salt through wooden spoon” and still be nourished. It speaks to our ability to use what we have in our hands, such as our talent to create magic, our tragedy to inspire creations that would not have been possible without them, to create the art of survival to confront catastrophe and to see the beauty that times bring to decay.

Some of my worst wounds
have healed into poems.
A few well placed
stabs in the back
have released a singing
trapped between my shoulders.
A carrydown
has lent leverage
to the tongue’s rise
and betrayals sent words
hurrying home
to toe the line again.
                      Lorna Goodison

Goodison here does not only craft a well-written and profound poem, but her poem suggests the power we hold to craft triumph from fragments of our scaffolding, having been plummeted by life’s challenges.