This morning, as I caught up on my Facebook friends and their musings, I read a comment from a man who said “So what do you trust when your heart is broken? We trust our mind which is full of doubt. I’m screwed!” I was on a site called “Project Happiness” which I found by following a photo that touched me. I’ve included the photo. This man’s comment stayed with me as I pondered how I would answer him if given the chance. The answer was not so much for him, as for myself. So I sat with the question of “what do you trust when your heart is broken?” I have some experience with a broken heart. I vividly remember the agonizing pain of receiving news that my youngest son had been killed in a tragic accident. Words barely capture the experience, yet poetry has been my way of attempting this language of the heart.
I have two poems for you today. The first written shortly after the death of Michael. The second written this morning as I sat with the question, seeing that I have truly learned to trust the pain and lean into it so I can harvest the gifts it offers.
The Sound of a Heart Breaking
What is the sound of a heart breaking?
I remember the shock and denial
My guttural “NO! NO! NO! No! echoing through my empty house
Repeating and repeating
Slowly replaced by a
Ripping, splitting, tearing open of my heart
And then an animal sound
The same sound of birthing and pushing and bearing down
This time to deliver myself and my body
To relieve myself of the intense pain of my son’s death
No baby to swaddle and hold when the screaming ends
Only emptiness and a sound forever branded on my soul
The sound of my heart breaking.
From Broken Heart to Open Vessel
Pain. Will I work with you or fight you?
Labor pains, contractions to open a pathway for new life.
Death of my son,
Contractions pulling on my heart
Opening new ways of being.
Pain, physical and emotional,
Pushing me through to the light,
Pointing the way.
My broken heart becomes an open vessel,
The lotus blossom emerging from the mud of darkness
I can learn to trust the pain and its promise
To see it as my friend, not my enemy.
I can refuse to hold onto or fight this sacred friend of my becoming.
I can embrace the breaking
Knowing that pain and joy each arrive bearing gifts,
Teaching me to expand and include
And to trust this Life Force that is breathing me,
Beating my heart, breaking it open,
That I might be an open vessel
For healing love to pour through.