Heart
HEART
My doctor diagnosed a heart murmur
“My heart does not murmur!” I said
My heart shouts for the lives of five kids,
for the joy of real love, for the turning of
this earth
The voice of my heart has a rhythm that
must be heard because the size of my heart
was long hidden from view, bright as it was,
was eclipsed by a moon both mobile and dark
But the sound of my heart surrounded that moon,
reached around to the world, gave horizons
of hope still visible today
The sound of my heart is a drummer in prayer,
a thumping for the wonder of on-going life and
a rhythm for healing the fissures of death, distrust
and discord
Their machines told the tale of bleeping and blips,
of pressure and valves and contracting walls, and
on the monitor screen I saw my heart working,
the mathematics of its rhythm, the symmetry of its
motion and the specialists and I, we agreed on a Truth:
My heart does NOT murmur! There is no susurration,
no slurring of beats
It howls and roars
It barks and it sings
And like the pulsating sun,
it is a long-session drummer,
infinite, relentless, pounding
without echo, and its savage
intensity is aimed right at you!
I’m still here, y’all!
And I love you like crazy!
Emanuel Carter
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