This Heart, By Jennifer Angelina Petro

This Heart

By Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

This snow slows time; falls

With patience only grief understands.

 

Watching from this bed,

These legs folded under,

These hands resting on these thighs;

This snow becomes everything

This heart is not.

 

This nearly motionless drifting,

This meticulous chaos beautifully covering

Roads and rooftops, this insinuating

Itself through exposed crowns of trees,

This cold made visible, this sky

Reminding all of us it does whatever wants.

 

Things it does not accomplish:

Reaching the little flames of seeds,

Shrouding this fierce compassion burning

Inside this heart—coursing through this blood—

Not here, not today—

The furnace of this heart rages on.

 


The Occasional Heart, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

The Occasional Heart

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

Some things are better left broken—

Seeds and cicada husks, the robin’s egg,

The chrysalis, the occasional heart.

 

Some things cannot be healed—

Not simply because they aren’t illnesses–

But because experiences cannot be

Undone.  And besides,

 

Some wounds

Are delicious—the taste of blood

Metallic and sacred, free of pity—

Fortifying the bones.

 

Wounds happen,

No rhyme, no reason, no

Providence.  They are moments

In the absurdity and the ridiculous wonder

Of living, of breaking open,

Of blossoming into the air,

Of wings settling and elongating,

Of the gift of spiraling inwards and

Outwards during sleep, during death, and unfolding—

Sifting through the branches of your life–

A most spectacular storm,

A most radiant calm.

 

Sit with grief.  Allow it to breathe.

It isn’t something

To be cured.  It isn’t

A sickness.

It is you, the self-same you–

Just as joy is your name.

 

Consider yourself

Whole—

Nothing

Missing, nothing worthy

Of stealing for, killing for, dying for.

Live.   Your soul–ever

Untarnished, uncorruptible—

Is more you than you.  Live.

 

As for the rest of it—yes—

The mind, body, the spirit—

These, like wings, can all

Be broken.  Rest as you move.

 

Everything gradually

Falls apart and wishes itself

Into the ground and sky.

 

Nothing can stop the holy breaking

Open.  Live.  Leap

Into the vastness

Of possibility.  Live.

 

Bury the dead, nourish the living,

And roar—

Dancing

Into your life.