The Real Heart

In the case of the poem events, the heart was real, one of those strange occurrences that critics would say is too implausible (yet true).

Heart in My Garden

I stomp and turn over shovels
full in, of hot anger,
heavy hard-hearted clay.

Becky’s not my daughter,
but she could be,
prematurely wise playmate.

We come to share our story,
we come to break the bread.

Is she meant to slip away
like dry sand through fingers,
clutching at hope?

Cancer doesn’t care
she loves family, music,
sun on her face.

We come to know
our rising from the dead.

I unearth pottery shards,
today only junk,
not mosaic-maker’s jewels.

Radiation, chemo, surgery,
Dr. So-and-So’s alternative--
it’s all the same.

Through our dying and our rising,
may Your kingdom come.

Glint of silver draws me.
I grasp a thin heart,
a pendant, engraved Love.

Between fingers and thumb,
I rub away dark clay,
knowing the future is near.

Through her dying and her rising,
Love finds a home.

First published in Pennsylvania English, Vol. 26, 2003/2004. This piece illuminates the title of my blog, a little.