A Poem: Your Heart

Take your heart, a torch to the field,
and watch it catch the dry foliage alight,
set it all aflame.

And know your heart
is a light that is not easily diffused
or constrained.

But is a source of endless vitality
in how it revives itself.
How its grace

is always an invitation
to another being,
to assure themselves of worth, regardless.

Regardless as to their broken state,
their right/left feet,
their limitations.

Or it’s a peace flag, in how it initiates a truce
leading to understanding,
redemption.

Take your heart, a flame to a field,
always more tinder dry that it appears,
and watch it take,

how its light is like the sun
or the stars,
just needing an impetus to start

a reaction at the core,
to then emanate out
a glowing beacon.

And by this fire
warm yourself,
know how you made it all yourself.

And see how like love
in its incandescent fervor,
it radiates,

how your neighbour’s face is
now all alight,
their own heart burning bright.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
January 2022

“We do not truly see light, we only see slower things lit by it.”
~ C.S. Lewis

“At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives… This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.”
~ Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander