Wednesday 5 March 2008

THE SHIFTING HEART


“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” - Oscar Wilde

Oh, heady days when our brain empties and our heart fills up! How different the world seems when love saturates every single cell of ours. Days full of sweetest pains, most hurtful pleasure, delightful agonies. And then again, when heart empties, the cold light of reason illuminates its deserted spaces and the echoing chambers make of it a place of ghosts and elusive memories.

And as time passes and wounds heal, the scars fade and the heart hardens. Time will heal all wounds, they say. But time also toughens us and the once tender heart becomes encased in a tough carapace that may grow inwards and strangle our heart in an inevitable petrification. This poem looks at shifting perspectives with the passage of time. Reason conquers emotion, but at what price?

A Year Later

A year later…
(I count the days)
I see you:
And your heart is like a house,
In which I’ve lived
For years and years –
Now, it’s up for sale.

A year later…
(How the years pass)
I see you:
And even now, maybe,
I’d like to clasp you
Close to my crystal heart –
Even if that caused it to break.

A year later…
(Yes, I have changed)
I see you:
Rarely now; I’ve got over you.
And although my heart has turned to stone,
You no longer have
The power to break it
Even if it were made of eggshell.

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