What the Heart Knows by Joyce Sidman

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit the ever-inspiring Anastasia Suen at Poet! Poet! for Roundup.

I'm pretty much in love with WHAT THE HEART KNOWS by Joyce Sidman. It includes 4 sections: Spells & Invocations, Chants & Charms, Laments & Remembrances, Praise Songs & Blessings.

Here are three of my favorites (though I totally could have selected 3 entirely different ones. Much to love here!):

Blessing on the Curl of Cat

As Cat curls
in a circle of sun--
sleep and round,
snug and warm,
a hint of ear
cocked in readiness--
so may I find y place
in this shifting world:
secure within yourself,
certain of my wroth,
equally willing to
           purr
             or leap.

-Joyce Sidman


Illness: A Conversation

I asked my feet why they could not walk
and they said, We are treading water.

I asked my legs why they buckled and fell
and they said, We are growing roots.

I asked my fingers why they had loosened their grip
on the world and they said, It is too hard to hold.
We are gathering clouds instead.

Why? I asked my eyes, which kept crying and crying,
and they said, We are waiting for the very last ear.

Speak! I told my lips, but my voice was not my own.

So I asked my heart, Who am I now?
and my heart said, The you underneath the you.

And I asked my soul, Who will I be?
and my soul answered,
        The one whose heart is open,
        the one whose eyes are clear,
        the one whose hands are full of sky.

-Joyce Sidman


Song in a Strange Land

I awaken in a village
on a mountain
far from anything
I have ever known.

My eyes are no use--
the dark is that deep--
and my ears
buzz with silence.

No ripples in the black,
no chink in the quiet.
Unmoored,

I could rise, teeter,
rumble down the hillside,
drown in the sea.
Why am I not afraid?
Amazed, my heart
waits for direction.

And there -- oh!
A rooster has found the dawn.
Its peal arcs through dark,
waking the circling hills
till the valley rings
like a steel drum.

Oh, yes,
says my heart.
Whatever the day brings,
let it ring.
Whatever the music,
let me sing.

- Joyce Sidman


Let us all sing!