My Granite Heart

I’m clinging to my cracked granite heart.

Burning molten sadness
is seeping
through the fissures
ripping away
my carefully constructed façade
and
scorching hopes and dreams.

What force will melt these frozen tears
Long fossilized
by artificial smiles
and carefully veneered
by pretending all is well?

Looking fearfully into the abyss
of knowing and unknowing
I’m grasping, then falling
Out of control.

The unstoppable ache in my heart
recognizes this suffering
shared by all beings
suddenly parted
from the pieces of themselves
residing within those they love
and lose.

I shall sit with this
In faith and patience
Sensing my own humanity.
Asking, listening, waiting…

Didn’t a wise man say “Prayer is the passport to peace?”