Carrying The Pains Poem by RIC BASTASA

before anything else
is pain

it is born
before everything else

it is the beginning
of
personal wisdom

it is a teacher
without pay

it hammers the nails
throughout the
body

one gets familiar
with the
touch of pain

it becomes pain no more
but an everyday
carpentry
in that wooden
system

a house appears
and there are windows

your eyes begin to
see
your hands
learn feelings

then you leave it
just like any house

you are a vagabond
on ceaseless pathways

you still carry that pain
built inside your skin

like a tattoo
the art of the scar

anywhere,
everywhere

for it is a sea without a shore
space without edge

you simply move on
there is no falling
or rising

whatsoever.