THIS ARTICHOKE HEART

I once believed I knew myself,
That I had mapped
The farthest flung corners of my life,
Its valleys masked by shadows,
Its fields awash with sunlight.
I thought I knew the depths of its jungles,
Prepared against its hidden dangers.
I believed I had gazed to its endless horizons,
Had bathed in azure waters
Of its farthest distant shores.

But life is not of calculable dimensions.
She will not reveal her secrets
To the searching explorations
Or the prying intrusions
Of cartographical investigations.

She presents an endless artichoke heart,
Each leaf a lesson, a gift of love or pain.
A sea of petals scattered at my feet,
Surrounding me like a thousand frozen teardrops,
Only now do I see,
I have only
Just
Begun.