A birthday poem
for Catherine, my daughter
Our first thought, of course, flows to brilliant rooms
which glow of craft, or, if we’re lucky, art.
But, being artists of earth, let’s assume
how our simple phrase relates to the heart,
its atriums and ventricles--each space
laid out to house just what we humans need
in blood supply. And how the muscle’s pace
responds to other muscles. When we bleed,
how the heart knows, before the mind, our plight.
How the same goes for sensing wrong or right.
How its landscape’s flexible symmetry
leads us beyond our original view
to discover a host of imagery:
Mostly the heart as love, like mine for you.
Roger Armbrust
August 21, 2000
