The Tenderness & Might of Armor,

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 141

Happy New Year Everyone!

“The past is not a package one can lay away.”  ~ Emily Dickinson

 

I once wore my disappointments of the past like heavy armor prepared to battle all that the future could hold or take away.

Keeping every harsh word and silent goodbye like folded letters in envelopes I could never send.

I grew wide fields of wheat feeding an obese denial that no tractor’s blade could ever plow,

and my heart built colossal walls so magnificent that no man could ever climb nor could my own eyes see beyond.

You see memory is a relentless child that has heard news of the carnival and will never forget when it does not come to town,

and those disappointments seem to grow bigger with time like a child’s hopes or a woman’s hips,

but even harder to ever lose!

So in the lessons that life’s hurts and losses seem to bring,

I learned to carry grief tightly like an over protective mother afraid of running children and the oncoming cars.

Looking back now, I see I had spent all my strength fiercely holding a certain sorrow;

afraid of losing all I hold dear.

Holding the cold hard knowledge of what it is to truly lose.

For life becomes a bitter struggle when the fear of what we could lose outweighs

the abundant joy of holding what we truly have.

 

 

The Way of Broken Hearts

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 82 hosted this week by the lovely and amazing poet Shay.
Come join us!

There is nothing so good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse.
 ~John Lubbock

My heart has never been trampled on by horses

Only the heart of a bitter man could be so cruel

No man has ever carried me through wild meadows

Only a horse’s spirit could be that kind

I have traveled far enough down graveled roads

 to learn that to be so

For the heart of a horse is deep like a sea

It rises and swells and touches all who come near

But the heart of a man whose soul has grown cold

Is a treacherous journey that will leave you lost and alone

Once you have been down that frost bit road

It can leave you as hurt as an old man’s aching back

And weary like the old woman that brought him his dinner

For years upon years

Still I walked away a long time ago

Searching for a peaceful place

I found it in my children’s children

And the sunrise of their eyes

like riding beautiful horses

I learned to rest upon the comfort of giving hearts

 And linger with the softness of their free spirit

For my heart has never been trampled on by horses

Only the heart of a bitter man could be so cruel.