Beauty Deeper than Scar

(Follow the link over Dr. Weems' name to learn about this incredible scholar-wise-woman-survivor-thriver)

For Dr. Renita Weems

Camouflaged by quick wit and wise sayings

Clothed in tears powered by anger—

You were never supposed to suffer

Smart as you are…

You lead with your mind—

Do not confuse this reality with the knowledge

That we who love you know:

Your nimble genius works in Amazon body/

Sharpshooter skilled tongue

Made sharper through the years

Woman/warrior, battles carved signs

On limbs/torso/organs that have borne wounds more ragged

Than some/you have knife-lined consequences

That scar—harbinger of wounds so much

More than cancer/cut deep/run more ragged

Than blunt-edged knife

And yet the years have folded over on to weary bones/

Marking the way the body betrays even the most

Brilliant among us/your breasts, too, weeping

From the folly of it all

Everyone who has ever had to come

By way of razor’s edge needs a witness/

Offer the scapel-lined path to lover’s eyes/

Needs beloved friend’s fingers to run tenderly along

keloid ridges of war theaters/

the body beautiful its staging area

No one fights nonstop

You get to pause/remember your mind

Just as beautiful needs your body/

Battled scarred as it is

You have a beauty deeper than any scar

In skin/bone/soul/a beauty that shines

Through cracks/strains/breaches—

And this scar that invades your body

Will ease its way

Into a beautiful place

© Valerie Bridgeman 

September 17, 2011

FINAL