#4

How do we measure a heart?

Today
tear stains
ripple your notes
She's having cancer surgery tomorrow
and she is in terrible pain
your daughter

you clench around it.
Tighter.
you cannot speak
or cry.
you cannot open.
for fear of coming apart
completely.
"It's too much" you say.
It's too much.

How do we measure a heart?

I had a boyfriend once, that kissed me in the rain and knew the Latin names of plants. Cooked me breakfast on a mountain top and took his shoes off to walk with me barefoot along the moss. One day, he told me he didn't feel 'like that' about me. We had climbed the same mountain to watch the sunset, then laid back on the granite rock, still warm from the day, to watch the stars come out. My tears mixed with mica and sand and moss, hidden from his sight, as he raised his arm to show me all the constellations.  How kind he was. I rested my head on his shoulder, knowing that I loved him and he didn't feel, 'like that' about me. It was spring in Vermont and the dandelions had just started to open themselves to the sun. My heartbreak echoed through my body day and night. One day, driving the hills at dusk, a field of rolling green pastures caught me and I held my breath. The field, verdant green, like a dream, had just exploded into an unbelievable display of yellow dandelions. In the setting sun, each one seemed to explode into firelight. This broke my heart too. I smiled. These dandelions all, broken hearts. Each one. Everyone. Their beauty, so stunning, was life. Beautiful broken hearts. Beautiful life. Thank you broken heart. Thank you life.

I can only measure my heart, when I feel it.

A healer once asked me if I knew my heart. I certainly thought the answer was yes. But, when I paused to look into that space, I realized, astonished, that it was very much a stranger. Looking in I saw and felt the layers of grief and sadness that seemed to inhabit her. That this was where the well of pain was. As vast as the oceans. It's easy to get lost there. Breathing in. Breathing out.

I want to make a map of my heart.

Today, news came from a beloved friend. Recalling our time together, my heart quaked and spoke. This beloved friend now looked out at the Pacific ocean. Pacific sand between his toes. Pacific ocean air in his hair. And mine, all Atlantic. The continent between. My heart trembled a little with this thought of distance and the unknown between. And then, I picked up a large, shiny green acorn. It's skin so smooth and green. Just dropped by the tree. This beloved place is my home. Right here. With acorns, goldenrod, yarrow, even poison ivy, bending in the wind. My feet walk along the pebbled shore, lapped by the deep blue of the frigid Atlantic. The summer wind blows off my hat and I smile to life.  I smile to my heart. Which is full of so much. Whose map I am learning to read.

-Llora H. Kressmann