The Heart Is Like a Yellow Umbrella

 Little 'twinkle-bug' is doing what all babies do...growing up WAY too fast!

...and tugging our hearts every-which-way but apart!

The heart is like a howling beast, hungry for what is not

Nay, it is like a cup that cradles seasons wrapped in thought

Or is it like a ragged rope worn thin with tug-of-war

Torn between what has been and who we were to who we are

The heart is like a harbor where time’s fleet of mem’ries rest

Or is it like a cargo ship atop a roiling crest?

Nay, it is like a vault with tender treasure in its keep

Where it is like a mother rocking her baby to sleep

The heart is like a patriarch that rules a palace, no

It is a beggar-child in search of crumbs to soothe its woe

Or is it like a poem pressed on pages, thin as air

Or perhaps like a pilgrim climbing mercy’s phantom stair

…or is the heart a hunter, plundering a world of whim

Nay, it is like the hunter’s prey, caught in a cage within

Or is it but the moderator of the flinty mind?

Where we would be too harsh, save for the heart, humble and kind

The heart is like a yellow umbrella tipped upside down

To catch a falling star and drops of sun-rain’s grin and frown

The heart is soft as silk and strong as steel, it holds; lets go

The heart is like a ping-pong ball that love bats to and fro

The heart is like a hammock, like a sock with holy holes

It pulses with the breath of life where deadly vice cajoles

Lone musketeer where faith and fear rankles its mortal bark

The heart is like a trembling minstrel singing in the dark

© Janet Martin