I CUT OUT MY HEART

I cut my heart out,
put it in a tin
buried it under the oak
and went on in to the world
turning my back on emotions.
Emotion is weakness
my old self knows this well.
I shade my skin to no longer
suffer such diminutives
Now I can trespass life itself
without care and its caution,
without fear and its hesitation,
without tears and their sorrow,
with nothing to stop me,
to put a stutter in my thoughts,
to cause a pause in my footing.
I face it all as emotionless as a statue
empty to my soul.
In the blizzard of winter, I will stand;
In the ferocity of the storm, I will stand;
In the heat of summer, I will stand;
to the end of days, I will face life
without a quiver,
without that heart that had made me soft.

MY OLD ELVANIA

My old Elvania,
She's brought on the veranda each morning
for the yellow sun
to warm her wrinkled, dry skin
but never her heart
because she's lost to the universe.
The dementia is eating away her core
All I have is an old vessel
hanging on to whatever is left of life.

My old Elvania,
She watches the world
through cataract eyes
holding a posture of a lifeless being
until the sun gets down hard
and she crawls back into her hut.
That is on a good day.
Otherwise if not helped,
she can sit there even in a storm,
lost to insanity.

My old Elvania,
Her favorite meal is roasted beef
She even hides bones under her beddings
to have a friend when the world sleeps
for slumber is now foreign to her.
The slow killer no longer grants her such liberties.
It haunts her awake
making nonliving shadows move.
Her nights are a screaming convention.

My old Elvania,
Doesn't know who I am
a stranger I've become.
When we sit and chat about the by-gone days
she constantly asks for my name
and how I came to know of such things
On good days, she's happy to see me
especially when I bring her beef.
On bad days, she's an animal
Come any closer her teeth and nails
will puncture your skin
and these days are piling of late.

My old Elvania,
might be gone to me
but that gives me even greater purpose;
to tell the world about the woman who nursed me.
The protection she gave me in the darkness of marriage,
the hard work she endured at the talons of poverty,
the tears we cried of joy
and of sorrow,
the laughter around evening fires,
the folk tells of discipline,
the guidance into womanhood,
the shoulder to lean on,
and when the world threatened my existence,
she was always there.
I'm going to be here for her
to the very end because...
I love my old Elvania.