Open Heart  by Nancy Schatz Alton

I want to be a “flung-open door”

just like the poem says

capturing wind & tree sway

bird song & seal dive.

 

I’m the Sunday hike all week long

no interruptions for the mundane

all sea swell & evergreen scent

no room for disappointment or dismay.

 

Yet the city rolls here:

truck honk, car wheels on cement

poop processing plant aroma

overwhelms pine, sea-salt & sweat.

 

That’s why I watch the way

my rubber boot meets the mud

frame the trees piled up & tossed

by Friday night’s storm.

 

I can’t live here but this

can live in me: earth stink

ghost-shaped winter trees

water soaked& satisfied.

 

*poetry line from “Brokeheart: Just like that” by Patrick Rosal