18. While My Mother

While my mother pored over reams of wisdom

Compiled from every obscure hamlet and mighty kingdom

That rose and rotted away through the years,

I grew adept from daily practice, not peers.

My father’s Catalyst, passed down as is tradition,

A daily reminder of him and his mission.

The surface smooth, worn by his meditative fiddling;

The mysterious, near imperceptible pinpricks I found riddling

Its otherwise flawless contours, marking every weathered inch—

Too regular to be by chance; the pinch

Of the Thorn as it pricked my thumb

Until a callus made it hard and numb,

Then onto the next finger. At last, when

Calluses showed I’d healed a hundred times ten

Times was when I was recognized as one

Among the Higher Healers. What is usually done

Is that the newly worthy healer is ordained

As elevated thus by the mentor who trained

Them. That day, my mother marked the occasion

With a handshake and, with some relentless persuasion,

An explanation. The story behind the tiny holes

In my father’s Catalyst. Despite the many tolls

Time has levied, I cling to it still:

A story that, with me, Justice shall kill.