It is the work of the living
to grieve the dead. It is our work
to wonder how else the story
could have gone. It is our work
to weep and worry, and it is
our work to heal. The clouds
hide the moon, hide the sun, sometimes
for days. We don’t believe
it will be forever. Some part of us
knows not only hope, but patience.
It is the work of the living
to love even deeper
in the face of death, to know ourselves
as flowers on the pathway,
easily crushed. The world crushes.
Some stems spring back,
some never rise again.
We know we must be resilient,
but resilience has wings
and sometimes flies away.
It is the work of the living
to, against all odds, grow wings.
It is our work to live—
and work it sometimes is.
It is our work to show up again
and again and again, genies
who refuse to go back in the bottle,
lovers who ever insist on love,
stems that feel sunlight and,
though we can’t yet move,
let it encourage our being.
Oh, oh, oh; how the myriad layers of this poem continually unfurl themselves. I’m suspecting the longer one looks, the more the layers exponentially increase. (As happens when two mirrors reflect each other.)
Along similar lines, I see the poem’s narrator being both someone contemplating the passing of a beloved, and that same beloved reflecting. I’ve long seen the song, The Ash Grove, effecting the same sorcery.
So deep and piercing is this poem, I’m shuddering, pondering its inspiration.
Continue to be well, my deeply dear friend.
Dear Eduardo, I adore you and the light in you and the dark in you. love, r
How true, how tender, how tremulously tenacious. For indeed it is our work to go on, to love, to hold light, to find patience, to understand, to make compassion if we run out and for those in whom it has run dry already. It is our work to listen, to grow, to bend, to lean in, to lend a shoulder, a hand, an ear, a heart.
Well done.
And may any who lose hope, find some who can temporarily hold it for them.
Na’ama
exactly as you say … may we all find someone to hold hope for us when we can not. and may we be willing to step in and be the holders for others when we are able,
xo
r
“Tremulously tenacious” Love love love love love.
Paraphrasing the opening from one of Rosemerry’s, Naked for Tea, poems:
Here, she said, her pockets
stuffed with hope
borrow some of mine.
Too, this link to another RWT poem, from three years ago:
https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2015/11/11/into-the-dark-again/
Bright blessings.
What fabulous quote from Rosemerry’s! Thank you! And thank you, too, for the kind feedback. Have a lovely! Na’ama