Here’s a practice that’s fallen out of fashion:
the poet ardently invoking the heart.
O heart, he calls. Dear heart, she cries,
both caught in the clutches of love.
Never mind that the heart
is about to be scolded
for its long history of foolishness.
Silly heart! the poet chides.
Beware! another warns.
There you go again,
the poet throwing up her hands.
And be still, a wise voice warns
before a kiss at the door
after walking her home in the snow.
Poor, poor heart!
no one talks to you anymore,
much less to the lesser organs.
O kidneys! My foolish lungs!
We no longer even speak to the moon
or the sky, the woods, or the hills
we’re so used to murmuring
in the rooms off the hallways within.
O Derwent! cried Wordsworth, to a childhood river,
and his mighty poem was underway in its flow.