How My Heart Is

“The prompt from””Writing Your Grief” is to write about the condition of my heart. I sat with it for a few days, trying to get a sense of where I am right now. The first image that came to me was the desert. “The prompt from “Writing Your Grief” is to write about the condition of my heart. So I sat with it for a few days, trying to get a sense of where I am right now. The first image that came to me was the desert.

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The condition of my heart is a desert garden, full of contradiction. It’s a place of beauty, dryness, and thorns. The dust covers my feet as I shuffle along, floating from the desert floor. It fills my lungs and makes it hard to breathe. And yet, from that desert floor springs giant cactus, green and full of thorns. They are beautiful to look at but don’t get too close, or they will pierce your skin, and the pain will cause you to wail.

As I wander the desert trail, I have an unquenchable thirst for what is lost. Yet, no amount of water will extinguish the dryness that is left behind. For every drink of water, a mass of tears will not assuage the desert.

And yet, the desert will not be silenced of its beauty. The sunflowers blaze in their glory, then fade away. The butterflies flit through the garden, their wings full of boundless beauty. Birds sing as they find each other among the trees. Cactus bloom in their season. Their magnificent flowers last for the day before fading away until next year. These all remind me of the fragility of my heart and life.