Poem, Let the Heart Weep

I wrote this as part of my grieving process around my dad’s death. The creative energy came from a men’s circle where we shared some of our favorite music. Music often provokes strong emotions, memories and ideas. At first, I wasn’t intending to do an entire poem but as I started to dabble with words the following morning I kept going throughout the day. The structure was quasi-accidental— it’s rhyming, 7-count, then 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, each with 2 stanzas. I realized I had done 3 sets each with a unique syllable count, so I went with it. The structure was limiting and yet it created a pressure for transformation.

Fire crackles, plays of shifting light             

A dance of shadows in the bright             

Impassioned unions, loving sighs                                 

Free releases, ecstatic cries                                         

The pain and the dark sorrow

Is for a moment no more

The heart weeps in knowing joy

Holding, hoping it’s destroyed

The Big Bang long past—haunted dreams  

Resistance swells to break the seams

The burning holes offer no respite

The moments present offer no flight

Collect the future, store it away

Surrender to oneself, pause and pray

Reveal one’s light for judgment divine

Strip off the masks…let sacred dark shine

 Compassion for self must be embraced

 Stand on earth, sky and stars, be with grace                                

 Make friends with grief, with the angry beast

 Greet secret devils to find your peace

 Alone in the dark, let the heart weep

 For joy of pain in the hallowed deep

 For joy of connection in hot skin

 For joy of meaning living within   

 Through the broken heart, you will see the light

 Wisdom whispered during the endless nights

 Discomfort disorders the righteous path

 To test, to forge, to shape from processed wrath

 Rejections, betrayals, confusion and loss

 The heart weeps and the mind seeks to cure the flaws

 Loneliness, separation, resilience and pain

 The heart weeps and the soul—whole and aware--remains

   Wise and old, the heart rung dry of lost fevered tears

   Of regrets, of gloom, of forgotten lonely fears   

   Remembering with clarity, aligned with love

   Filling the empty spaces, below and above