Do you believe in fracture?

“To be a good human is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered...being more like a plant than a jewel: something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.” - Martha Nussbaum

I read that I need a go bag. My mind flashes to
passports, cash, our dog’s hydrolyzed food,
my Buddhas (the tiny one), my journals
(the current one), mylar blankets from the car.

At an antique barn, he buys a set of cast-iron
knights, each holding a thin red staff.
One on his nightstand, one on his sister’s,
one to guard his father and me.

In a tumble, his knight breaks a leg, so we
glue it together and scotch-tape a bandage.
When the seal won’t hold, I offer him mine,
but he says his is fine on its side.

Driving miles of blackened forest, I want
to believe in fracture, in the green shoots
sprouting under the lodgepole pines whose
cones kissed the red-hot heat to open and seed. 

My knight tips over. I prop him back up.
At night, before bed, I look for him,
touch his head, gather my prayer.

                                                                  Not yet.