Kintsugi

With every trial and tribulation,
A little of the heart, mind and body wears out.
Every such scar seen and unseen,
Has formed troughs that are waiting to be filled out.

To add meaning to what we went through,
We must fill the furrows with love ten fold.
Like the Japanese art of Kintsugi,
That is used to repair broken pottery with gold.

Those cracks have built our character,
A life fully lived they allude to,
Just like that old broken plate, now unwasted,
Has been beautifed for others to put to good use.

Notes:
I’ve always loved knowing the meaning of new words. Some Japanese words, like this one, are so deep and meaningful. One word. SO much meaning. Kintsugi is a word that inspired this piece of poetry. It is about brokenness and how it doesn’t have to mean the end of anything. I hope you like reading it.

Per Wikipedia, Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair”),is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

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