Know the wabi sabi

Know the wabi sabi

 

 

of your old  body.

Trace lines and folds,

 

the lace of worn beauty.

 

Feel tenderness

for aging and rust. Listen

 

to blue veins singing

 

through delicate skin

draped over bone,

 

the soft fat bits.

 

Salute the bravery of moving

the aching parts,

 

and ride your chi running

the time-carved canyons,

 

ride the grey raft

of your weathered

 

wisdom.

 

-Zann Carter (Vigo County)

 

Zann Carter is a poet and fiber artist living in Terre Haute. She co-hosts a monthly open reading, is a two-time winner of the Max Ehrmann Poetry Competition and  her work has been published in Arts Illiana Spectrum, Terre Haute Living, subTerreanean, Twin Muses and in an ephemeral mural on a wall in Ohio.

Indiana Humanities is celebrating National Poetry Month by sharing a poem from an Indiana poet every day in April (hand-selected by Indiana Poet Laureate George Kalamaras). Check in daily to see who is featured next!