Let us praise the heart, how it persists
despite fluster. Our rugged heart,
broken and healed many times over,
and yet its daily work continues.

Today is a day for cleaning out
the garden bed. Already we wake
in darkness, wrapped in November,
our heartbeat buried under extra

layers of wool, but no secrets hide there.
At the heart of it, we say, meaning
truth lives in those red chambers,
truth we carry from our ancestors.

That big red throbbing center
of the universe that is the body. Let us
praise the heart, how it lingers
when breath falters.