<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">The Big Heart<div><br></div><div><div class="" style="font-size: 16px; "><i> “Too many things<br class="">are occurring for even a big heart to hold.”</i></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>W. B. Yeats </i><br class=""><br class="">Big heart,<br class="">wide as a watermelon,<br class="">but wise as birth,<br class="">there is so much abundance<br class="">in the people I have<br class="">and all in their short lives<br class="">give to me repeatedly,<br class="">in the way the sea<br class="">places its many fingers on the shore,<br class="">again and again<br class="">and they know me,<br class="">they help me unravel,<br class="">they listen with ears made of<br class="">conch shells,<br class="">they speak back with the wine<br class="">of the best region.<br class="">They are my staff.<br class="">They comfort me.</div><div class="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; ">They hear how<br class="">the artery of my soul has been severed<br class="">and soul is spurting out upon them,<br class="">bleeding on them,<br class="">messing up their clothes,<br class="">dirtying their shoes.<br class="">And God is filling me,<br class="">though there are times of doubt<br class="">as hollow as the Grand Canyon,<br class="">still God is filling me.<br class="">He is giving me the thoughts of dogs,<br class="">the spider in its intricate web,<br class="">the sun<br class="">in all its amazement,<br class="">and a slain ram<br class="">that is the glory,<br class="">the mystery of great cost,<br class="">and my heart,<br class="">which is very big,<br class="">I promise it is very large,<br class="">a monster of sorts,<br class="">takes it all in—<br class="">all in comes the fury of love.<br class=""></div></div><div class="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><br></div><div class="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Ann Sexton</div><div><br></div></body></html>