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Monday, February 28, 2022

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken



It is a gift to see with a wild heart -
this planet of blue and green,
so beautiful, so bountiful -
vision wide and all-
embracing,
until we narrow the scope
to human war and folly,
to all the suffering we heap
upon ourselves and other creatures,
to the damage we cause
to Mother Earth and the
beyond-human realm.
How do we keep our fractured hearts
from breaking?

(how can this be happening again?
I feel I've lived too long.)

I walk among the Ancient Ones,
breathe in the scent of cedar and salal,
part the ferns to see skunk cabbage
thrusting upward, salmonberry blooms
so pink and sweet. I count the waves,
measuring my breathing to their ebb
and flow. I stitch up the cracks and fissures
in my heart with poems, ease the ache 
of harsh words coming at me
with cups of tea and the comfort
of time passing. Springtime
is blossoming again in spite of us,
showering blossoms even as
bombs fall and families flee in terror.

(how can this be happening again?
I feel I've lived too long.)

They say wild hearts can't be broken,
yet mine has shattered and been healed
a thousand times. It stretches now,
like rubber, to accommodate
more pain, as unwelcome
in my exhausted old age
as it ever was, yet here it is
again.

The gold of wisdom and experience
fills in the cracks, the ache,
like kintsugi does old pottery.
But even hearts of gold
can break.

for my prompt at earthweal: Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken. But there are times when it feels like they can.

8 comments:

  1. I feel your heart is almost at breaking point, in this lines and in your prompt, Sherry. As is mine. But we keep going: we keep doing all that we can. I am grateful for your voice!

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  2. Keep your wild heart, Sherry. Look for the beauty still in the midst of the chaos. Thank goodness for the goodness of wisdom and experience. THAT you definitely have!

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  3. Your poem echoes my own thoughts and feelings. These are very dark days. Suzanne - Mapping Uncertainty

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  4. Healthy hearts are broken best -- there's no escaping it -- and the healing is always in becoming wild. Which means, to me, news of the human world and suffering the reality of living in it is our day job -- we can't quit it but sure don't look to it for nourishment and healing, which we get turning our back on it for the rich part of our day (the second long stanza). It's what lovers do -

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  5. Yes indeed. I wonder if I can go completely wild again (Thus my poem). But give us these words, Sherry, and I'm glad we share stories in poems.

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  6. I agree with you Sherry. There is no wading through the crazy of these times without the green growing and trees to lean on and animals to remind us how to live in our animal skins. so much sadness and gratitude rolled into one. A lovely poem.

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  7. Springtime
    is blossoming again in spite of us

    That is something that both lifts and breaks my heart. Like the entirety of the world.

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  8. I think wild hearts can be broken as they love the deepest. With saying that, I believe there can be healing through the grace of nature and the heavens.

    I love the way you heart connects with the life around you.

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