The Keeper of a Heart

How precious you are

So full yet accepting more

So strong yet so vulnerable

Filled with courage and fear

Don’t worry, little heart

I will keep you safe

I have built a fence

All about to keep you

To protect you, of course

You have such a propensity

To go, with casual concern for life

I have built a wall

Outside the fence

Protection is a necessity

As Hamlet spoke it

“The slings and arrows

Of outrageous fortune“

I have built a roof

And fortified it greatly

Lest o’er the wall comes

The stinging barb

Tipped with the deadly poison

Hurled within the epithet 

I have built a moat

About my ‘castled’ heart

One can ne’er be too careful 

With one well known

For throwing caution to the winds

Living the dangers of impulse

Rest peacefully, little heart

I have kept you safe

There beyond my moat

Beneath my gabled roof

Past my mortared walls

Just inside my keeping fence

Despite the fortifications 

Lies my dying heart

I have built a casket

Oh, the beauty of polished oak

The luxury of a satiny embrace

So lifelike the image created

As if my heart merely serenely rests

Sans love, sans hope

Protected

Lying in state

I take my position 

In somber repose 

I will guard it well

In death as in life

For I am

“The keeper of a heart”

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

September 30, 2020