Let's put all our treasures together - the clock, plates, cups carved in gold into a sack and carry them to the sea. There let our possessions smash in the sinister shock of a breaker; let the things that are broken call out like a river and the sea render back to us whole in the might of its crosscurrents all that we held of no worth. The junk no hand has broken, but still goes on breaking. -from Oda a las Cosas Rotas by Pablo Neruda
Poet, Pablo Neruda makes peace with all things broken. He portrays brokenness as a state as natural as wholeness. When things get broken, it's no one's fault. Items fall apart and wear out. People go away, change, break down, and die.
In personal narratives, we weave fragments back together again. Stories breathe in the vase's crack.
Jump through the landscape of your mind in search of broken things.
Make a list of things that break. Combine animate and inanimate objects and ideas.
Which tools do individuals use to fix the broken? Some possessions get fixed, others are replaced or abandoned.
Does everything break? What should become fixed or salvaged?
Seeds break open for growth to occur.
Clouds drain rain to nurture the earth.
Walls tumble to open fields.
Everything has the potential to break into renewal and vibrance.
Detail times of difficulty and what might have broken: a relationship, an opening from cracked thoughts, a passage into new life.
Flow into ideas and emotions as you reflect on the waters that swirl around the notion of breakage. Focus on an end result that mends the pieces or creates a kaleidoscopic effect for your enrichment.
Discover what's broken that opens into awareness.
Write a story or poem about what you did with something that broke, including the feelings attached. What was life life before and after the break?
Go into private thoughts. Write with variety, velocity, and vigor.
". . .my heart a blue cup fallen from someone's hands."
- Dorianne Laux
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