The Doc Leaf & The Nettle

Doc leaves always grow near stinging nettles,
she told me, as she rubbed the coarse leaf
over my bruised knees.
These skinny white legs, the canvas
for red etchings spreading to the edges of my skin.

Burning and itching, restricting—
and there I was, still out of breath
from running and jumping and flying over
dry stone walls,

Careless and as tall as the trees that hung low,
doing what young boys do
before their mothers’ voices
call into the golden light,
beckoning them home for food.

Wincing, frustrated, I try to shake off the sensation,
and she tells me that won’t do.

She rubs the leaf over my skin,
calls it a healing balm for a hero’s wound.

And after all these years,
the young boy—who grew too big
to run in those small shoes—
has found out once again that her words are true.

You can’t shake away the pain.
You can’t beat it with your fists,
nor can you wash it away with rain,
or liquor, or fame, or fortune.

It keeps burning, an invisible flame upon your skin.
And you itch, and you itch,
and you try to find a way to eclipse it—

Like the night sky we woke up so early to witness,
wrapped in coats,
a flask of something warm held in our mittens.

I’ve tried to find a way to escape it.

Distracted.

As far away as I could get,
with as much distance as I could make
from that place—

Next to the dry stone wall,
where the trees swung low,
and my soft skin first felt pain.

Forgetting—

That Doc leaf only grows near stinging nettles.

The soil that yields the curse yields the balm.

The healing is hidden within the hurt, in the same dirt.

Grace only grows in the place where we’ve been harmed.

Where else is it needed?

So return to where you fell.

Find, hidden amongst the thorns—

Where suffering was born—

The healing that is yours,

and receive it.