What to Do With Your Heart

 

What will you do with that heart of yours?

Will you scrimp and save it away

Padlocked safe in the larder of your breast,

Eked out in miserly morsels

The nett of it rotting in perfect parsimony?

If such is the inclination,

Deny it even this stale crumb.

Condemn the noble organ to its base and vital task,

Ticking off the meaner moments of a life

Unsullied: unadorned both.

Is this truly a trade worth the making?

Why ensnare the heart?

Why set it round with traps and caveats?

Once uncaged, this bird of paradise may fly free

Or, liberated, home again embroidered with its mate.

So, why hoard your chips?

Stake all on a red or black

And trust only that you’ll break the bank.

Safe above the puppet master and his pierrot

Take to the trapeze and eschew the net.

Flame like a meteor if only for the instant.

Love like your heart was meant to be broken.

Love generously.

Love freely.

Love boldly and dangerously.

Above all, love foolishly,

For love is all that there is.

(Thanks to the amazing sufi poet and philosopher Rumi for the last two lines)