Made for the Heart
Written: June 23, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Robert James Liguori.
Note: The poem is about interrelated art. Visualizing the picture while reading it makes it more captivating.
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I stand before the canvas—
the earth stretched wider than shepherds’ strides,
longer than harvest songs,
its pigments spilling caravans,
wild horses scattering sparks,
a child chasing butterflies
to the rim where sky melts into amber.
The horizon folds into shadow,
shrinking when one heart grows narrow.
The brush has balanced it
on a mustard seed,
fragile, trembling,
straining to hold two brothers
quarreling for olive shade.
How can a heart turn narrow,
The strokes seem to ask—
born in camps vast with mothers’ prayers,
raised in tents whose ropes clasp another,
taught to break and share bread,
guided by women who lit lanterns
against the boundless black?
In the lower corner,
iron glints—
a figure sharpening blades
to silence the olive’s song.
But across the canvas,
summer lingers:
cicadas thrumming in amber dusk,
children weaving laughter through sycamores.
Painter’s hand insists:
a heart is made for vastness,
for ardor, for sharing,
for love that endures.
And beneath the final strokes,
a refrain is written:
Let no heart grow narrow.
It was born wide as the welkin,
deep as the harvest,
tender enough
to hold the whole world.
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