SCARS

They tell how it was, and how time

came along, and how it happened

again and again. They tell

the slant life takes when it turns

and slashes your face as a friend.

Any wound is real.  In church

a woman lets the sun find 

her cheek, and we see the lesson:

there are years in that book: there are sorrows

a choir can’t reach when they sing.

Rows of children lift their faces of promise,

places where the scars will be.

William Stafford