08 January 2025

Let the Heart Remember


 

source

Does guilt prevent you
from touching the joy in the
corners of your heart?
 
Thinking that slaughter
is somewhere else, thinking that
you can’t stop the blood.
 
Feeling that, though you
beat them over the head with
words, nations murder.
 
They destroy children
and environments where life
could and did thrive once.
 
Your heart holds on to
the pain, but your heart also
remembers delight.
 
Is it possible that
joy generates ideas
more useful than guilt?
 
Throw off the blanket
of guilt, see what love can do.
Let your heart remember.


 For Mary's prompt "What the Heart Remembers" at What's Going on?


My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.

© 2025 Susan L. Chast  

10 comments:

  1. Mary1/08/2025 9:39 AM

    Your poems continue to give me such inspiring thoughts in these troubling times. This poem's last two stanzas are the ones I want to remember. Guilt accomplishes nothing, but love can. Thank you, Susan.

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  2. Sherry Blue Sky1/08/2025 10:39 AM

    This is beautiful, Susan. It is so hard to remember joy in dark times. Yet the heart never needed it more. I remember an activist friend saying to me "Mother Earth feels your pain. Let her feel your joy too." I never forgot that. Thank you for the heartlift of your poem.

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  3. Sumana Roy1/08/2025 11:16 AM

    Oh Susan! Thank you so much for this heartfelt poem. "Your heart holds on to / the pain, but your heart also /
    remembers delight." This is the truth of life.

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  4. Kim M. Russell1/08/2025 12:04 PM

    I agree with Sumana, Susan, this is a heartfelt poem, and one that hooked me with the opening question and gave me hope in the final stanza.

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  5. Anonymous1/08/2025 4:19 PM

    I agree with your sentiments entirely. It is time to wake up and hear the deeper songs of the heart. Suzanne - Wayfaring - Wordpress blog

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  6. Rajani1/08/2025 8:04 PM

    True...but so hard. I'm just glad there's poetry and all the focus on writing is a constructive way to cope.

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  7. Fireblossom1/09/2025 10:57 AM

    I never feel guilty about things I had no hand in and cannot alter. The Serentiy Prayer is my go-to. I do love your poem, Susan.

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  8. Truedessa1/09/2025 3:46 PM

    I do think guilt holds us captive in a way, preventing us from feeling love and joy.

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  9. Susie Clevenger1/10/2025 1:38 PM

    Guilt can be a monster. Too often felt guilty about what I had no control over. Yes, let go of guilt and throw your heart open for love, and good things.

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  10. Dora1/15/2025 2:33 PM

    "See what love can do" -- Words we don't hear often enough, Susan.

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