Healer

Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash

I have a complicated relationship with the word “healer.” For me, it evokes memories that are tinged with fear and confusion, ego-driven acquaintances who do more harm than good, monomaniacal fake gurus who will promise anything for cash. After a brilliant conversation about this word and what it means, I am thinking more about the word, the archetype, and what it could mean. Y’all — this is why I love poetry. You get to arrange words in a way that can alter meaning and memory is a way that is, well, healing.

The space between myself and you --

this is the Healer.

Like mud carried in a waterfall,

it dissolves into that which is motion

travels over, lands and re-forms,

settles and becomes a part of what it touches.

Between us, the rushing water.

When we both reach out and touch

palm to palm

letting drops slide down our wrists

into the warm secret bends of our elbows --

this is healing.