Autotomy

 

Kylie Parks

Autotomy

 

In danger, the holothurian splits itself in two:

it offers one self to be devoured by the world

and, in its second self, escapes.

 

Violently it divides itself into a doom and a salvation,

into a penalty and a recompense, into what was and what 

will be.

 

In the middle of the holothurian's body a chasm opens

and its edges immediately become alien to each other.

 

On the one edge, death, on the other, life.

Here despair, there hope.

 

If there is a balance, the scales do not move.

If there is justice, here it is.

 

To die as much as necessary, without overstepping the bounds.

To grow again from a salvaged remnant.

 

We, too, know how to split ourselves

but only into the flesh and a broken whisper.

Into the flesh and poetry.

 

On one side the throat, on the other, laughter,

slight, quickly dying down.

 

Here a heavy heart, there non omnis moriar,

Three little words, like three little plumes of light.

 

We are not cut in two by a chasm.

A chasm surrounds us.

 

Wislawa Szymborska 

 

"We too, know how to split ourselves..."  Marine biology for poetry lovers, or poetry for marine biology lovers - or both. Szymborska took a few liberties here, though. The holothurian (AKA sea cucumber) doesn't split itself in two, it eviscerates itself, that is, expels its insides.( A division for sure.) The sea star does a more straight-forward division like the one described in this poem, but the metaphor of offering oneself to be devoured still holds. Having to divide (for preservation's sake) "what was" from "what will be", to separate the despair from the hope in order to escape with our lives is something familiar to many of us.

"To die as much as necessary, without overstepping the bounds.\To grow again from a salvaged remnant."  Beautiful. And the three words, too. Non omnis moriar = I shall not wholly die. That's comfort. For a time I may be only partly myself, but there will be enough left to move ahead, to recover strength, to become whole again.