Couraging the Heart

The world broke open my heart.

The shell, softened by tears and time,
slipped off like a silk cloak
at the world's insistent tap,
and my soft center
spilled out like golden yolk.

What do I do now
with this soft spherical potential
suspended in fluid viscous as blood
and clear as water.
One hurtful poke and the yolk
will bleed a golden river.

This heart of my heart
I never knew
could be so vulnerable
and yet so capable
of holding the world's touch
in its pulse. Every cry absorbed,
every flutter and gasp, every grasping
towards kindness, all human acts
of love and fear and doubt and hope
are held in this golden yolk
I hold in my hands

and return now
gently to its opened vessel,
its tender home tended by time and tears
pieced whole again
by the glue of its desire to heal
by defying its own self-doubts of survival
to live in strength born of softness, vulnerable resistance
couraging the heart to stay fiercely open
in the name of compassion and all things related
to living in love

--Diana Tigerlily