anahata

my heart---
keeps timeless time,
and tuneless tune,
is a belled fool
fishing in a pool
beneath the moon
as green as cheese,
is a bell, is a cup,
struck and un-struck.

my heart---
leaps like a fish,
falls like a star,
as above, so below,
a stellium
shining in a puddle,
is the echo in a shell,
a voice in a well,
a city afire,
a wilderness of briars,
a prophet, a liar,
a beggar maid.

my heart---
is a compass rose,
is brave,
is afraid,
mismanaged,
mislaid, waylaid,
forsworn, forbidden,
a map with singed edges,
a whetstone,
a treasure.

my heart---
is dim,
is bright,
walks a line of light,
straight as an arrow
targeted true,
true blue enough
as it sings and thrums,
seeks and finds.

my heart---
is smoke and mirrors,
bones in the desert,
a signpost, a monument,
a midden.
it takes no prisoners,
no heed,
and pays no mind.

my heart---
is a buried thing,
planted deep and hidden,
a seed, a pip, a kernel,
keeping time til spring,
a watch, a clock,
fragile as eggs,
rock hard, a gem,
metal and marrow and meaning,
mortal, eternal,
a red paradox.

my heart---
is haunted rooms,
a humming stone,
brimful of cinders,
and sweating gold,
alchemical furnace,
memory box,
garden and grave,
mistress and slave.

my heart---
walks on coals,
swallows swords,
is a sideshow, a freakshow,
a cooch tent, an acrobat,
a lion tamer, a muddled mystic,
a four chamber circus
daily drumming up
continued custom.

my heart---
drives an endless red river,
an ouroboros of life,
pumps twin bellows
of breath,
and daily delivers
its pythoness poems,
pity and pith
coiled about
a pentacled codling,
which i must eat,
moths and all,
for the knowing,
for the loving,
for the living.