PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

When you take a walk alone in nature…listen to your footsteps

because from the moment that you start…

You’ll hear how the sound your footsteps make…match the beating of your heart.

Check your heart rate as you’re walking…it’s amazing don’t you think

how the sound your footsteps make and your heartbeat are in sync.

And the more you walk alone nature….

through forests, over mountains, valleys and firths.…

you realize your footsteps and your heartbeat

connect directly with the heartbeat of the Earth.

Whether you’re walking under the moon and stars or accompanied by the sun… 

you quickly come to appreciate…how your two hearts beat as one.

As you listen to the symphony of nature…as you hear Earth’s music hum…

you realize to her daily operetta 

your connected hearts provide the rhythm of the drum….

The Ojibwe word for drum is Dewe’igan (day way eh gun)

which, when you pull that word apart…

means the instrument that creates the sound of a beating heart.

The Ojibwe believe all of nature is animate…alive…

they include their sacred and cherished Dewe’igan too…

On a walk in nature 

as you listen to your heart connect with the heartbeat of the Earth…

you begin to understand how this Ojibwe belief…is true.

One thing I love about the heart…as each day we grow a little more

is it’s amazing ability to stretch…a little more than it’s ever stretched before.

As a child…how easily it stretches to cover our mom, dad, sisters and brothers….

and when we think that’s where the stretching ends…

it stretches even farther to cover our relatives and friends.

As we grow up…we are happy in this comfortable circle where we are…

surrounded by friends and family our heart doesn’t have to stretch out very far.

But time moving on is inevitable…and there will come a day

we realize how far our heart can stretch…when it’s time to move away.

We are thankful for how far it stretches…those times we feel alone

and how it stretches on to new friends, perhaps a partner…and a family of our own.

And for a while our heart is relaxes…until there comes a day

when it must stretch again…when our children move away.

Until one day, in our old age, when we smile

thinking about all the ways our life’s unfurled….

and give thanks for a heart that has the ability 

I think of the heart as a never-ending puzzle…

a kind of puzzle in reverse.

where pieces of other people’s hearts can be added to ours…

and where pieces of our heart to others can be dispersed.

Every heart comes with a little mystery…

because as each day we grow 

exactly who we’ll share our pieces with…

is something we don’t know.

Love has the final decision on the pieces we choose to share…

deciding who I give a piece of my heart to…

and who gives me a piece of theirs.

When love works her magic, however, both sharers will admit….

somehow…the pieces shared between them…are a perfect fit.

And whether the wait to share a piece of our heart is short…

or if it takes a little longer….

when pieces are shared with love…

each heart grows a little stronger.

I wonder if that’s why when we lose someone we love…

oftentimes what happiness we find. 

is knowing they took a piece of our heart with them…

and left a piece of theirs behind.

Perhaps the most comfort we can take…

when someone we love departs….

is knowing a person never truly dies 

as long as we have a piece of their heart.