Wabi-Sabi
Brandon Cook
When I am done with this porch
I will leave the broom sitting vigilantly over beams so freshly swept
A cleanness kept
A tornado ready always to strike at Wichita,
Looming mercilessly to threaten all
With cleanness
The broom hangs as a prayer of welcome, accepting that all things change
Everything changes and nothing stays the same
And we will never be done sweeping
We will always be in the business of cleaning and pushing at the chaos of life and love and loss
It is our lot
And glad or grungy we can plot it
In the past, I would put the broom away, for to say
“This job is through”
But now I gladly shake the hand of imperfection
And leave incompletion dangling
Hanging like an unfinished note
A shave-and-a-haircut but two-bits has left town
With the cousins and the family goat
And in all this incompletion, I have learned to find the voice of God
Who shines so brightly through jagged edges and on broken hooks
And the just bent pages of holy books, fallen from their shelves
Though, “Blasphemy" some old self says, for the Holy One is all complete
“But don’t you know?” I say
God shows best in places out of place
And Jacob walked with an ungainly gait
The Japanese have made an art of celebrating the imperfect—the worn down in good use, the broken and repaired
A vase, say, sealed back to life with golden paste
So the broom hangs like gold glue over the porch, promising to repair the world
And we are all, of course, not only the sweepers but the boards
And the vases, held together by something healing that, if we will let it, reflects light up from holy places
That is the task: create order out of chaos knowing chaos will take backs its place
Dust will fall, and dust you’ll chase
But do it with a smile and a grateful face,
Do all this,
And call it grace