By Jane Hirshfield
There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down—
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.
And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,
as all flesh,
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest—
And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.
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I didn't have a very exciting Friday and now I'm distracted by Colbert in New Zealand so I will keep this brief -- got some stuff done, went for a walk in the park, brushed leaves off the deck, did laundry. We had dinner with my parents, came home and watched the new episode of The Mandalorian (I was really nervous at first but it justified my love), then another of The Crown (which seems to be about everyone but the Queen most of this season and I don't really give a crap about Philip's mid-life crisis) before this week's Graham Norton with Olivia Colman and Helena Bonham Carter. Some more adorable mammals from the National Zoo:
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