Poem: "Elegiac Heart" by Pamela Harrison

Elegiac Heart

Sometimes—in the middle of conversations
about asparagus and missed appointments—tears appear,
brimming like spring marshes freshening with light.

These tears are the work of the elegiac heart,
whose view is always over a shoulder,
mourning what is lost.

Who can blame the heart
for having its head on backwards,
for naming too late the joy it lately lived?

LISTEN
Pamela Harrison reads Elegiac Heart"