Tre Odi per Violoncello

 

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #163

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"Music is the universal language of mankind."

. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is a certain silence in the burden of unseen things

Quieter than a broken cello that no longer has its strings

The songs of a thousand sorrows a choir shall never sing

But still one heart will hold them all within its broken wings

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Your hair is a legato

That flows as soft as wings

Your fingertips hold true moments

That turn eternity with every string

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There is a force that music surely holds

It moves through the heart of broken souls

Like time and longing of regret’s lost dreams

It beckons and prods through winds and strings

I held it once with a hymnal on a tattered page

Listening to a choir and a cello play

No longer standing at a back aisle pew

for then I soared where hope and angels do.

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.

 

 

Places of the Heart

Art by helldivo at DeviantArt 

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. 

~George Moore

Emptiness has a way of holding a heavy weight within the places of the heart

Like a sinker on a fishing lure

Taking broken men down broken roads

Where all the paved highways lead to every gravel path

It is there that they seek some kind of shelter

but loneliness rips through every room like fire

leaving behind only the silence of rubble in its wake

we lose ourselves in many ways

trying to hold up bridges that are not ours to cross

forgetting where we came from

we head to the same place that took our father so far away

 lost is a place that cannot be found on any map

 we stumble upon it blindly with empty hands

for all the mapped directions that lead to somewhere else

have long since been left in drawers full of other things we never needed

I searched for you in the eyes of others

Wanting to never lose the memory of your smile

It was in that place of longing

Where loss plants the deepest roots

And no matter how high up the tree you climb

It is hard to see beyond that place

It took me years to discover that simple truth

Trying to find my way to you

I lost my own direction

Until I realized

You were already there

In the reflection of my own eyes.

© Carrie Van Horn 2020 

Tender Is the Only Way

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 103
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“A final comfort that is small, but not cold:  The heart is the only broken instrument that works.” 

 ~T.E. Kalem

I witnessed at a tender age

the fragileness of this life 

How the softness of what we hold dear

even held tightly can be lost

 like fingers wiping tears

I carried those memories onward

 the way a soldier holds his gun

And like thorns of a brier

I learned not to get too close to anyone

But in that darkest of journeys

My path was lighted with many doves

and children that came into my world

Taught me what it was to truly love

It is a door that must remain open

For what could enter and should depart

For tender is the only way

To truly hold a heart.

Dedicated to all my children
Terry, David, Amber, Ryan & Becky.

The Way of Broken Hearts

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