This is how it is with the heart:
There are no words.
Like a river it pushes on
Listening and moving
It leaps
It laughs
It weeps
It finds its joy in the beluga
Its peace in the resting Chinook
Its sorrow in the long-waiting river rock
It lies deep in caves like desire
And pushes forward to an ecstasy of ocean
Or it falls, and dissolves into hidden pools
—So close to the unseen fire.
Anthony Adrian (Tony) Pino
teaches English at Ohlone College and San Jose City College. He travels often and was recently inspired to write "Take Off Your Shoes" in a recent trip to El Salvador, where, he observed, the mothers of that country seemed to hold it together. He has been married 42 years to Judy Rausch of Fremont, CA, has two grown children, Petra and Mark, a dazzling granddaughter named Sophia, and two arrogant cats. He has masters degrees from George Washington University and Cal State East Bay. He is devoted to prayer, poetry and fiction—and two arrogant cats.