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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“Holy work of holding what comes, what goes” - this is just beautiful and happens to be what I needed to read today. Thank you!
So resilient, the heart! Thank goodness, or we'd all be a mess - and couldn't continue our holy work!