A Song for Broken Souls

I have seen them— 

wandering like leaves in autumn winds, 

carried, turned, sometimes caught 

in the sharp branches of the world. 

.

They are not sick. 

They are not dying. 

They are moving. 

Forever moving. 

Blown off course by strange winds 

that whisper promises of safe harbors 

but lead them instead to wild seas. 

.

They twist, 

like a compass at the North Pole, 

their needles spinning, 

searching for a truth 

they already hold 

but cannot see. 

.

These souls, 

they trust too much, 

too easily. 

And in their trust, they crack— 

lines spreading, 

like a spider’s web kissed by frost. 

But oh, what light enters there! 

What radiant beams break through those fissures, 

and what tender glows escape! 

.

Broken souls are artists. 

They are makers of worlds. 

They paint with infinite colors, 

textures that no hand but theirs could shape. 

Their lives are masterpieces 

not of completion, 

but of becoming— 

a process that sings louder 

than any finished work. 

.

And yet, 

beneath their beauty, 

there is pain. 

A deep ache that pulses like a second heartbeat, 

a reminder of their need— 

not for fixing, 

not for mending, 

but for healing. 

.

When you come upon a broken soul, 

do not ask what shattered them. 

Do not try to stitch their fragments 

into something whole. 

Simply love them. 

Pour your heart into their hands 

like water into parched earth. 

Let them drink of your kindness, 

let them feel the warmth of your gaze, 

let them remember 

that love exists 

even in their wilderness. 

.

Because this— 

this is the nature of true healing: 

not to seal the cracks, 

but to honor them. 

To show them 

that light still streams through, 

that their brokenness 

is their glory. 

.

And as you love them, 

watch. 

Watch as their pain softens, 

as their spinning needle slows, 

as their winds become 

a gentle breeze. 

.

For in the love you give, 

you will see 

the beginning of their becoming— 

a broken soul, 

a wandering soul, 

finding its way 

to the horizon of itself. 

© R Gordon Zyne