This cracked vase form of mine 

lies shattered 'pon the floor.

Strewn about the garden weeds,

porcelain chipped, paint dulled.

It was smashed a while back

when someone knocked it in the grass,

and the sun's been yellowing the paint ever since.

One day, not too long ago, 

someone walked into the overgrown brush 

and bent down, looking over the broken pottery,

and piece by piece, she picked me up

gathering everything gently in her palms,

placing all I am, have been, will ever be- 

ever-so-gently on a dusty dining room table.

"I cannot make you perfect," she said,

assembling each piece back to where it should have been,

"But there is no use in being broken. 

I cannot make you perfect,

But I can make you better."

So she pulled it a soldering iron,

touched it to ceramic fragments,

and made something new- shiny and better.

The vase was put back together, 

cracked veins of gold, 

gold holding me together.

You could tell I had been cracked, 

but you could tell I was healed,

Imperfectly beautifully renewed.