Heart, do not bruise the breast that
Shelters you so long—beat quietly Strange Guest.²
We’ll never escape from our heart so it’s
Better to Listen to what it has to say:³
The Heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own,
The Heart has its seasons, its evenings and songs of its own—⁴
The Heart has narrow banks it measures like the Sea—
In mighty unremitting Bass, and blue monotony.⁵
There sits no higher court than man’s Red Heart—⁶
In the celestial Palace of our own precious Hear—⁷
Blessed are the Pure in heart—for they shall see God!⁸
The Earth keeps some vibration
Going in my Heart—and that is me.⁹
A Free Heart with one proud impulse beats,
One Common Blood thro’ our life’s channels flow.¹⁰
¹ Paul Celan tr. Nikolai Popov & Heather McHugh
² Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theme and Variations
³ Paulo Coelho tr. Alan R. Clarke, The Alchemist
⁴ Jerome J. Garcia & Robert C. Hunter, Eyes of the World
⁵ Emily Dickinson, The Heart Has Narrow Banks
⁶ Sylvia Plath, Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest
⁷ Padmasambhava tr. Gyurme Dorje, The Tibetan Book of the Dead
⁸ Matthew 5:8 (King James)
⁹ Edgar Lee Masters, Fiddler Jones
¹⁰ Alberry Alston Whitman, Not a Man, and Yet a Man