Men with trivial scars - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

We wear scars from our youth, trifling things
reflecting those earnings from growing days,
of battles raised and wounds worn in simple
praise of a Spring of early learning’s.
I was there when you broke your arm,
we were sliding a plank in mad array,
shouting hurrah, daring the day when you fell.
A clean fracture and you wore a plaster cast
enigmatically for weeks, stoically cursing the itch,
belying your tears. You kept that cast
with caring names autographed in colours
wrapped in plastic for years and years.
When you sliced off part of your toe
it amazed me, how could pushing a mower
engage your toes in such an antisocial way?
In dread I searched amidst peach pieces
strewn on the lawn, found your forlorn,
late toe, brooded over it, despatched it
to hospital with you. I know it did not return.
Under the same trees in a brutal assault
on fruit too tall to reach you hurled a fire shovel
into the breach, hoping to dislodge something to eat;
it fell on my head. I knew I would die
(was practically dead, the blood never ending),
an indignity lending no courage or pride;
the scar ridge rides tender to fingers which search,
gently linger, remember…,
glide on. And thus we grew strong
in benevolent suns and munificent stars,
into cautious young men with trivial scars.
© I.D. Carswell