Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser

Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser

[67] ODE TO THE HEART SMALLER THAN A PENCIL ERASER after Brian Doyle's Joyas Voladoras I don’t know whose translucent wings those are twitching, disappearing into a knothole in the ceiling; but in the throes of great uncertainty I am asked to consider the miniature: * A heart the size of a pencil eraser, beating ten times a second, hammering faster than we could hear. * A heart that fuels flights more than five hundred miles without stopping to rest. * Hot heart that kisses at least a thousand flowers a day but cold, slides into a torpor from which it might no longer rouse. * Oh my constellation of fears, shamed by a wingstroke smaller than a baby’s fingernail, thunderous as the world’s wild waterfalls. * Heart like a race car engined by color, buffered by wind, stripped for nothing but flight. * Chant of bearded helmetcrests and booted racket-tails, violet-tailed sylphs and crimson topazes. * Rosary of charismatic names: amethyst woodstars and rainbow-bearded thornbills, pufflegs and spatuletails. * You’ve found me out: I have a bag of tortoise coins. I’ve spent them like a miser, hoarding each little bit of copper against that one stupendous day. * I’ve lived mostly alone in the bricked-up house of my heart, but a wind teeters at the door, all skin and apple breath. ...