From Cafe Writing's March/April 2009 Project:

Option Three: Timed Writing

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne, from Mosses from an Old Manse

Take fifteen minutes (use all fifteen, but don't go over), and write on the subject of a picture of your heart. This is a timed exercise and it's expected that it won't be perfect. Any format--fiction, essay, verse--is welcome.

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Panoramic View of My Heart

There are days when taking snapshots of my heart is difficult. It has flaws and is composed of fragments even I have no words for. I find it unwilling to smile or peer out at the world, but it believes in the goodness of others. It is a turtle most of the time. Each design on the shell holds a captured moment in time--a memory that somehow replays itself. Lines, curves, shapes add to its dimension and hoards sincerity and kindness in those corners.

A pattern on a quilt, lily pads across a pond, a flat rock that skips across the lake. It skids like car tires when it rushes excitedly or functions under great stress, grabbing for something to anchor it during rough tides.

Underneath it all, it holds the keys to compassion, strength, and patience. It is the phoenix that dies and rises from ashes. It is mostly a solitary organ, content with nature, and in the last couple of years, found a soothing kind of peace that is unforgettable. It could almost touch heaven and knows what freedom means.

It follows the footsteps of friends, families, and acquaintances. It craves for stories, and each story heard is written and bound, then set on its hundreds of shelves ever expanding.

It finds every angle, every perspective in different hues. One color can be magnified to hundreds of colors like magenta, red, pink, maroon, or fuschia. Like red, it yearns to breathe life and keep on pumping blood, contracting every emotion in its muscle and recycling it.

It writes poetry and finds love and friendship in unexpected places, times, and people. It composes music during sleep and sings along with angels. Its secret name is "Blessed," as it is saved and mended many, many times.

My heart is a science and art in itself. It follows a philosophy of balance in clarity and travels on tough roads through its veins and arteries but is always determined to follow through and find its destination no matter what happens.

3/16/09