You cannot patent the human heart
The impatient clerk replied
But it is my own, I tell the man
An incomplete gift from my maker
Left for me
To finish with all the moments of my life
Note its case, its movements, its near perfection
All fashioned for dreams of love and despair
Wound bout with bright copper, palladium and gold
It is set with the stones of experience,
These are precious
These less so
And yet all plucked from the sands of distant shores
Zephyr kissed and caressed by time itself
Its surface has been polished by moonlight and starlight
Sunshine and ice
If you press your ear close to listen
You will even hear its voice
My voice
My laughter,
My tears and my sighs,
Like a thousand waves of the captured tide
Whispering in an old seashell
Year after year after year
Reminding and urging to be remembered
Touch it I implore
Hold it in your hand
Feel its pulse and feel the life that it encloses
It is alive, this I know is true
For this very morn
She pulled it beating from my chest
To prove that I was wrong
Machines are not alive, she declared
They do not love nor can they dream
But I do dream
Screams my pain
This is the proof – iron sure
I live
I love
I dream