The Heart has narrow Banks it
Measures like the Sea – in mighty
Unremitting Bass, and Blue Monotony²
The Heart has its Beaches, its Homeland
And Thoughts of its own; the Heart has its
Seasons, its Evenings and Songs of its own³
There sits no Higher Court than man’s Red Heart⁴
Blessed are the Pure in Heart – they shall See God⁵
In a Celestial Palace of one’s own Precious Heart⁶
A Free Heart with one proud impulse Beats, one
Common Blood thro’ our Life’s Channels Flow⁷
Heart, do not Bruise the Breast that Shelters
You so Long – Beat quietly Strange Guest⁸
You’ll never Escape from your Heart so
It’s best to Listen to what it has to say⁹
The Earth keeps some Vibration going
There in your Heart and that is You¹⁰
¹ Paul Celan tr. Nikolai Popov & Heather McHugh
² Emily Dickinson, The Heart Has Narrow Banks
³ Jerome J. Garcia & Robert C. Hunter, Eyes of the World
⁴ Sylvia Plath, Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest
⁵ Matthew 5:8 (King James)
⁶ Padmasambhava tr. Gyurme Dorje, The Tibetan Book of the Dead
⁷ Alberry Alston Whitman, Not a Man, and Yet a Man
⁸ Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theme and Variations
⁹ Paulo Coelho tr. Alan R. Clarke, The Alchemist
¹⁰ Edgar Lee Masters, Fiddler Jones