The beat of your heart

I’ve just this minute finished adding the last splashes to this one, ‘The beat of your heart’.

Unusually I got my inspiration by writing the poem first (included below) and although the painting didn’t reflect the image in my head (which is common, as this way of working is unpredictable) I’m happy with the result, especially the way the silver branches gleam against the dark background. Anyway, please let me know what you think!

 

The beat of your heart

 

Does the beat of your heart reverberate

Around those tremendous ears

With hearing pin-drop sharp?

When you are statue-still

Silhouetted in the sunrise,

Does the moaning wind

Have a drum roll accompaniment,

Flicking your whiskers like soft castanets?

When you breathe in the cold, frosted air,

Nostrils twitching and delicately misting,

Does your heartbeat strike a rhythm

To underlie the wispy patterns?

 

Running across an icing glass field

Does your pulse skip a beat with the joy of the flight

Giving stretch so, so high

And so light

That your feet barely touch,

Enough to glide yourself into the air

And float

Ghost-hare like?

Perhaps your heart is a motor,

Giving power to ascension,

Propelling imaginary wings,

Allowing you to sail and drift.

 

If I could touch you

I would feel the shiver of life,

That nervous buzz of energy

Generating warmth through your fine, drifting fur.

But I could never touch you.

You would catch me first;

My image in your firelight orbs

Caught within the splinter of light

Which turns your eyes to glass

That as sharp as a broken shard

As quick as noticed

Fled.

 

So I sit here waiting,

Listening to the beat of my heart,

Waiting for a glimpse of the fire.

 

Vikki Yeates

January 2022