“And when two people have loved each other
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see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;”
– Jane Hirshfield
One of the most enduring mysteries of science for centuries was the question of what brought things together and then what kept them together. After theories of gravity and quantum dynamics, we are still left with the question of what it is that brings people together and what is the glue that binds our relationships and heals our wounds, beyond the limits of our own agency. Jane Hirshfield’s poem refers to the ‘proud flesh’ of scar tissue in horses; the tissue on skin that was previously an ‘untested surface’ and is now permanently marked with the sign of having been in union with another.
For What Binds Us
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.
Jane Hirshfield
From: Of Gravity and Angels
Love untested by the small battles rarely survives the big ones. Love learns to heal. Thank you for this beautiful poem.