Full Circles

Coming back to wholeness

by Ronan McCormick on Flickr

In the absence of you,
I find myself becoming
complete, a crescent waxing
on its way to full and gleaming
like the perfectly round pearl
I thought I’d find
as a child cracking clams
under the pier at the lake,
not knowing the harm
in forcing open
what is tightly shut, searching
for something to adore

I underestimated the way
our cold years
cultivated darkness in you,
so unfeeling under the callous,
bruised black beneath the shell
I pried and I pushed
and I pulled and searched,
shining what little light
I had left on you until
you cracked and cast your shadow
And you couldn’t live
with looking like anything less
than the good man
I was willing to see
all you kept inside if only
to get a glimpse of what I found
precious in you once: