Traveling Boy’s Memory Lane Invites all writers to share their stories to the world. As long as websites in the internet are accessible, these stories will be your footprint of your life adventures. They may be happy, sad, playful, religious, political, narrative, poetic, etc. The more creative and the more honest, the better. Years … centuries from now, some alien ship will find this website and will wonder what mankind was all about. Your articles will answer a lot of their questions.
by guest poet: Nancy Cowardin
Hearts can be broken; hearts can be hard;
Hearts can be blessed, or cursed, or on guard.
Be it bold, soft, or sweet, most hearts beat to old age,
Or at least to live out the words on that last page.
Until that day comes, hearts keep up a fair pace,
To relentlessly function with courage and grace.
But if a rare beat causes doctors to worry,
Technicians in labs set about in a hurry,
To look in the heart’s small internal abyss,
And decide if they see anything that’s amiss.
Like, let’s say a woman, Zoom class underway,
For no reason at all, did just faint dead away.
So, the E.R. checks out both her heart and her head,
But their tests turn up nothing to cause further dread.
Well, that happened to me, so they hooked up a test
To look at “events” both awake and at rest,
With a cool little gizmo not meant to be chic,
But a necklace I wore every day for two weeks!
It observed rate and speed, any glitches for sure,
The intention, I guess, to result in a cure.
That was all well and good; I was glad to take part
In this neat little journey to survey my heart.
But just between us, I was sure it would find,
That there’s nothing much wrong with my heart or my mind.
In the end it appeared that this test did reveal
That I’m healthy and strong and as young as I feel.
And as for the fainting, I knew it would say,
That sometimes a lady can swoon dead away;
But before this event she must pick up her fan,
With a hand to the forehead, move toward her divan,
And say, “I declare, despite ladylike capers,
The heat took its toll and I do have the vapors!”
Nor could this test see the true essence of “heart,”
So much more than a mere flesh-and blood body part.
Did it know I’m kind-hearted and value my friends?
That I work to make peace, always first to amend;
That I give all I can in a large-hearted way,
Of my stuff, time, and money, to make someone’s day?
And finally, the love and compassion inside
Is what keeps my heart going through life’s wild ride.
No, a test can’t map this on its graph or its chart,
But I hope it detected I have a “good heart.”
