Heart
by Barry Sultanoff, MD
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Barry Sultanoff, MD is a founding member and former board member of the American Holistic Medical Association. He is a psychiatrist and family physician with a home-based clinical practice in Hawaii. An avid student of feng shui, he is a pioneer in defining and promoting "the new environmental medicine," which emphasizes the creation of optimal healing environments for client and practitioner.
Heart's the helper
who is always persevering.
She keeps on keeping on.
She's the love patrol,
reliably on beat
from dawn to dawn.
Heart is always
pumping energy.
Her natural home's
the center-hub
of all delighted actions:
She's the operatic sweetheart
who will give away
outrageous systoles
of fragrant rose--
and then, a second later,
blushing, sally forth
her diastolic gifts
of bud bouquets.
Heart's a loyal lover,
bathing all of her beloveds
in the bright red Ganges
of her strong arterial devotion.
Heart's blue-bloodline
is matriarchal,
pulsing, princess-pure,
her stem cells tracing back
to Divine Mother,
to Sarada Devi,
to the Pele-heart
of Vulcan's machoistic roar.
Her blood type is
(It's always been!)
BE-Positive
But here's the hidden matter
of the heart:
Heart really hurts.
She aches.
The wounded heart knows
all the pain there ever is
and all that's ever been.
Heart has infinite compassion
for all mortals,
for she tastes their joy
and knows their sorrows--
from the salty seaside
of their oft-times saddened seeing
through the worn and hidden valleys
and the raw and knarly hot-spots
in the cellars of their being.
She knows mortality.
Heart has been there
through it all -
with the steady thrumming of
her Dum, Ta-Dum, Ta-Dum, Ta-Dum.
Choose heart
as your true friend:
She'll never fail or falter.
You can always
count on her.
You can slide
your jangled nerves
onto the hammock
of her legendary steadiness;
and float there, unimpeded,
like a prayer flag
gently blowing in
the limpid breeze
above her temple floor.
At times
the heart may bring
an odd arrhythmia or two:
Like you,
she can trip up
and lose her way.
But soon enough,
so naturally,
she will reclaim
her loving metronome,
reverting as before
to her bright cadence
and true phase.
Trust me, if you will:
This well-tempered heart
is squeaky smart.
She'll not lie still for long.
For mute passivity just
leaves her heart-broken and pale.
She must express herself -
or run the risk of choking
on her own suppressed
intelligence.
Cradle heart
in both your hands,
you'll know the hidden pulse
of all the water
in the universe.
This heart, she reaches
every secret well,
fanning out her tiny tendrils,
tapping sustenance.
Even in the driest stone,
she finds a rivulet.
Inside heart is heat,
the kind that warms old socks
and dessicates their mustiness,
old mold spinning gold.
Also inside heart is hat,
the soft and floppy kind
that you can pull
over your sagging spirits.
If you've taken grief to bed,
she'll proffer you a cover
for your cold and aching head.
The hurt of heart
is yours to have,
as is her rare enlightenment,
her cartwheel-turning ecstasy
Her giving's never countermanded -
not in any aspect of her chart.
Heart is the intrepid giver:
Her domain is your heart-felt desire.
Can you accept,
can you receive,
can you entrain to this, her subtle art?
For after all,
this lover, heart,
is full-aligned
with your most sacred part.
June, 2004
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