Master, My Heart Burns
By John Herlihy

Master,
I know not my own heart,
Not now and not at the start.
It changes with uncountable beats;
The beats tie up my life at the seams,
With empty spaces that lie in between.
Each beat echoes in my thoughts and actions,
As a pathetic string of interminable tweets
That shake in the wind like an autumn leaf.

Master,
Why am I a tissue of insubstantialities,
As tremulous and stiff as a cat’s tail,
Full of premonitions and not thunderous realities,
Nor as meaningful as the permutations in brail.
Why can’t my heart gather momentum to take flight,
With the song of summer that the cricket sings?
Why can’t my heart find its fullest delight,
Riding through the air on dragonfly wings?

Master,
Why does my heart burn with incredible pain?
It plays music on a flute that reflects my strain.
The sorrowful notes echo one after the other,
Any remaining joy is just left to smother.
My heart yearns for something more,
Something that can throw me down on the floor,
Then lift me up as though by mysterious levitation,
Into the realm of the spirit as in meditation.

Master,
Teach me the ways of the soul,
How I can make myself whole.
Teach me the ways of the spirit,
How I can awaken myself with merit.
Teach me how to defeat my limitations,
How I can overcome my frustrations.
Teach me to defend the faith of Abraham,
Teach me the meaning of who I am.