Because I know in my body
the power of spaciousness,
I command my heart, Stay open.
Stay open, I growl,
as it clenches and hardens
and granites and steels,
but my terrified heart
keeps clenching anyway,
tighter and smaller and stuck.
I said, Stay open,
my voice a demand,
as if with intensity
I could force a release.
And the heart curls in,
intent on survival, like a pill bug,
like an armadillo, like a heart
that has learned before
it is not safe to love.
And it hurts to be small.
And it takes so much energy
to clench, that finally
it’s exhaustion that helps me
to hear the softer voice
beneath the command,
the quiet voice that arrives
like the slightest of waves, the voice
that arrives like low morning sun,
and the voice enters the clench of me
like gentle rain meeting dry earth,
and it says, Of course, you’re afraid.
For now it’s enough to remember
the possibility of opening.