the heart is a muscle as strong as the body

you’re running away to join the circus
you’re running so hard toward your dreams
you’re flying
and i’m crouched here in the garden,
both hands in the soil,
growing roots i can only hope
you’ll someday return to.
i plant my heart
in this warm and increasingly fertile earth
while your heart grows wings
to launch it from the branches
that have come before.
the heart is a muscle,
as strong as the body, as flexible.
you arc, solid, powerful, graceful
a spinning curve from the trapeze bar,
taut, beautiful, capable.
i bend and bend again,
plant row after row of tomatoes,
corn, beans. You coil and turn,
toes pointed, eyes open
to an inner distance.
the aerial dance flies you,
pulls your body, speaks through you.
my corn comes up, in the long
summer sun, rises tall enough
to shade the tomatoes.
our hearts are muscles
as strong as our bodies, as flexible.
we dance this distance,
grow with the change.