The Heart's Holy Work

Dear friends,

This week’s Bonus Poem comes from my dear friend, Melinda Burns, an Indigenous poet and psychotherapist from Canada. I love the image of the heart she presents in this poem from her book, Homecoming, as self-repairing and holding both what comes and goes. Melinda will be my special guest on The Monthly Pause, the writing community I host via Zoom each month. Join us here, if you’re not already a member, for inspiration and writing time.

Melinda Burns

Heart

Broken love affairs, broken

marriage, broken friendships

press on the heart, crazed

like a dropped blue vase, cracked

like a frost-heaved flowerpot

splintered like a slippery glass

dropped from dishwater


All these containers

and yet, the heart

goes on, self-repairing

in ways unknown

to continue its holy work

of holding what comes,

what goes

*

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