A Lesson Once Learned (Reticence)

Be still my beating heart -- Yet there she stands,

Eyes fix on eyes -- Frozen in that place feet can’t move,

Can’t turn away -- It's not healthy to run at this pace.

Those hands -- Arms outstretch -- Fingers touch

A chest -- A brick wall, a bridgeless chasm -- Hands pass

Unimpeded; a distance spanned -- Shattered like falling

Glass -- A lesson once learned so hard to forget.

Fingers gently grasp a beating heart -- Feet won’t

Move -- Free will is severed – Eyes stare at a beating

Heart cradled in cupped hands -- Writing on the surface 

Of a lake.

Fear -- Never to be wrong -- Rippling water, falling

Glass, beating heart -- A life in tender hands, the dirty

Dusty ground below -- Restore my broken dreams.

July 1990