It is not enough to sweep up broken glass.
Tiny shards, no matter how carefully I search for them, elude my broom. A second sweep, with a moist towel or sponge, that’s the step many people omit.
Not me.
I’m down on my hands and knees, reaching farther than I can imagine a remnant would travel, reaching and reaching. I hold, simultaneously, the faith that there is no glass under my knees, and the belief that there is more to find. I lean down and look sideways, searching for the last glimpse of crystal dust I can’t see from above. There I am, my head on the floor where only moments ago visible glass chunks, shards and crystals rearranged the spatial landscape. The instantaneous rainfall of noise and matter re-arranging itself goes eerily quiet in the next nanosecond.
For the last two nights, I dreamt of broken glass.
The first night, it was the hand-painted, thin crystal water glass at my bedside.
Last night, it was the glass on my son’s bathroom counter, which broke in real life just before bedtime, when he was dutifully bringing in his towels to the laundry room.
A promise that began with cheers to the sound of broken glass ends with glass that breaks in my slumber.
Upright with a broom, on my hands and knees with a sponge, and finally, with my face resting on the floor, gazing across the expanse of cold tile, I clean it up:
-the jagged edges of disappointment
-the splinters of old dreams
-the translucence of deception
-the fragility of those who dared to hold delicate glass
-the surprise of transition
-the clarity of separation
Some explosions we welcome, like fireworks that shatter a deep dark midnight sky, revealing its emptiness only when it becomes backdrop to startling beauty and light.
I stand back and survey the gleaming, sparkling, glinting floor. The bright explosion of glass crystals has created a new open space.
It is dazzling.
Lovely, dear friend. You take a moment we’ve all experienced and turn it into poetry. I SO enjoy your writing!
Your canvases are your poetry, my dear! Glad we can witness the art in the everyday.
I am always amazed at the symbols our dreams offer us, as you’ve offered your readers in this piece (of writing, not glass!) and others.
Well done!
A few days before my husband announced he was (out of the blue) ending our marriage, a glass shelf — holding wine and champagne glasses — fell out of the cupboard when I was standing before it, a tremendous, dramatic shattering in a houseful of people gathered for a dinner party.
Foreshadowing? Perhaps. Or maybe there existed an invisible tension in the air, imperceptible vibrations that agitated the molecules in the glass. Something, anyway!
Wow – powerful moment, especially given your relationship with glass. I believe in those “something” experiences, the spaces in-between that seem to come alive on their own sometimes. At least I hope for “something” that exists even when we can’t see it. That shelf flinging itself to the floor makes more sense than the alternative, that all the shattering just happens and we connect the dots because we need to!