The Cemetery of Hearts
It was a Cemetery of Hearts
laid out in neat rectangular squares
tombstone engravings of individual stories;
of loves lost and betrayed,
tear-ravaged love trysts.
love cuts, severed
or grief-laden,
all buried in Innocent's Ground
from whence they came.
I peered at the writing on first tombstone and then some others:
'He led me on and then made love to my mother
all this to me unknown.' one said
'I died in childbirth alone after having been exiled
from my home to a nunnery.'
'She plotted against me with my best friend.'
'She told me the baby was mine.'
'I died of grief in a sex war and of an affection-less marriage.'
My love and I were shot lying together.'
One said:
'Dead hearts murdered by rage or fear are the worst;
these hearts die gnarled and alone.'
The caretaker addressed me:
'What are you doing here? ' he said.
'I came to bury my heart with the rest of them.' I said.
'Really he said. Let me have a look.
This heart, ' he said is not really dead.
'I can't bury a heart that is yet alive.
that would be murder and wrong;
away with you.
You are premature. Go. Take this heart
and feed it, make it live again.'
I was shocked. To me this rejection was
yet another heart-ache to endure.
'My heart is not dead enough? ' I said.
'That's right, ' he said, yours is merely slightly used
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poem by Lonnie Hicks
Added by Poetry Lover
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