Let’s say there’s a window
at the end of a long dark hall—
the more we walk toward it
the farther away it feels.
And then, let’s say, we stop
trying to get anywhere and meet
where we are. That is how
I found myself on the other side
of the window, released
into sky—blue sky, then tangerine
sky, then sky dusky pink.
That is how I found myself
talking with my son the way
we used to whenever he went
to camp—through the sky.
Only this time we didn’t talk.
We just were. Together.
I would say we were fused,
but more truly, perhaps, commingled,
as if our atoms were diffused enough
to commune. To know this
for a moment is to know it
forever—how it is that
there is no separation.
How it is that we are one.
Archive for November, 2021
Three Months After His Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, communion, death, oneness, sky, window on November 29, 2021| 7 Comments »
Erosion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, land, letting go, undoing on November 29, 2021| 10 Comments »
We are being given the chance to become who we are supposed to be.
—Judith Jordan Kalush, in conversation
I didn’t know I’d found a thin ledge
where I could rest, I didn’t know
I had come to feel settled there
until the ledge crumbled.
I clung to the ground as it fell.
It’s not just the ledge
coming apart, it’s me
being dismantled, undone by loss,
and it hurts, and I’m sad, and it’s hard,
but I notice no impulse to fix it.
Today there is a spaciousness in grief
I could not have known was here—
Ungrounded, I expand in every direction.
I let go of what I thought was solid.
I kiss the letting go.
Sisu
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, Finland, grief, shoes, sisu on November 28, 2021| 8 Comments »
Sisu is a Finnish word that describes the Finns. It refers to grit, determination and bravery in the face of obstacles and a willingness to keep going when others would give up.
Superman had his flowing red cape
and Ironman had his red armor,
but my father had
his black wingtip shoes
with one heel built taller
than the other to accommodate
the different lengths of his legs.
He wore them to church,
to the store, to fish, to dialysis.
He slogged in them through puddles
and trampled through slush
and shuffled behind his walker.
He wore them with suits.
He wore them with sweats.
He wore them with blue hospital gowns.
In Finland, when things get difficult,
they say, Eteenpäin sanoi mummo lumessa—
Forward, said the granny in the snow.
And damn, did my dad move forward,
despite deep drifts of pain
that for decades crippled his body.
Though every step hurt, he persisted.
And so, when I carry his shoes to the trash,
I thank them for bearing the weight of his suffering,
and I choke on the sobs that rise.
Thank you, I say. Dad, you’re my hero.
With reverence, I drop the shoes into the bin.
Missing My Father
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, death, father, legacy, missing on November 26, 2021| 6 Comments »
When you miss him, look inside.
—Deb Stevens, private correspondence
Today when I miss my father,
I hear him in my voice when I say,
You’ll go broke saving money.
I feel his tenderness in the way
I hold my own daughter’s hand.
His laugh blooms inside my laugh
when I giggle hee hee hee.
Here he is, ever inside me.
Returning home from his death,
I feel transformed,
or is it I feel more me—
the me he helped to shape
with his life, the me
he is fashioning with his death,
the me I’m still learning how to be.
What the Sky Knows
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, grief, holding, sky on November 26, 2021| 5 Comments »
Before the feast,
I slip outside
into the rose glow
of evening and
talk to my loves
who no longer
walk this earth,
and I cry and cry,
and I thank them
for being in my life.
How is it possible
at the same time
to hold so much gratitude
and so much grief?
And the sky holds me
and the rooftops, the
streets and the fields,
the factories and forests,
it holds it all, holds
what is most beautiful,
holds what is most foul.
The sky doesn’t try to change
anything. Like that,
it seems to say
as it turns a deeper
rose. Like that.
New Territory
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, grief on November 24, 2021| 10 Comments »
My grief has inside it a forest, thriving,
evergreens of all ages, each tree grown
from a seed of gratitude, each seed
sown from a kindness, a beauty,
a tender word. Some trees were planted
by strangers, others by beloveds,
and others I planted myself.
See how it is that in these moments
when I think my feet are too leaden
to take another step, the sunlight
will sift through the overstory
and shine a path. Sometimes
the whole walk is just one step,
but one step is all it takes to not
be stuck. There are glades where
song gathers and I can rest, trees
I can climb and find a nest
made of thankfulness large enough
to hold me. I didn’t know
how vast the forest was until
I knew how wide grief can be.
And so I keep planting trees.
I am learning to trust the shade,
to breathe in more deeply
the fragrant air, and despite grief,
because grief, I am learning to walk
deeper in, then deeper.
Instead of Shutting Down
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, death, grief, life, recovery, small things on November 24, 2021| 10 Comments »
Cast your lot with all small things.
—Sharon Corcoran, from her new poetry collection The Two Worlds
Today I cast my lot
with the tiny tea leaves
giving their all to hot water.
I cast in with the light touch
of my brother’s hand on my shoulder
and the slight whimper my mother makes
when she finds in the closet the gift
my father had bought them for Christmas.
This, the first full day of life
without my father,
a loss so big
that all I can meet
are the smallest things—
candle flame, scrap of song,
orange butterfly wing.
They lead me like crumbs
toward courage, toward life—
and so I join in with the teeny blue flowers
still blooming on the rosemary bush.
I cast my lot with the thin creak of hope
heard only when tears are falling,
with the faintest gleam of love
only able to be seen in the darkness.
Leaning All the Way In
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chair, daughter, death, father, grief on November 23, 2021| 22 Comments »
If I let it be,
grief is a chair
that supports me
when I crumple.
It requires
nothing of me
except that I give it
all my weight.
Limp, I sink in,
and it doesn’t ask me
to try to pretend
I could rise.
It lets me wet leaf.
It lets me empty room.
It lets me vast sky of gray.
It holds me.
I lean in.
I nothing for a time.
I slow ache.
And grief says
yes to me.
*
oh friends, my father took his last breath this morning just after 5 a.m. he was loving and full of gratitude and positive and warm till the end. I thank you for all the kind messages I have received–if I do not write you back, please know that I do read every message and thank you by name. I am so grateful for your support. I know the poems have been a fairly relentless chapter of grief–and love. And love. I have never been more in love with the world, even now, especially now.
That Passes All Understanding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged church, dad, daughter, death, family, hospice, laughter, peace on November 21, 2021| 14 Comments »
from our birth … to our death … the wonderment …
—Dr. Charles Henry Wahtola, Jr., November 19, 2021
And so as the priest leads us
in the litany for the time of death,
and though we are sincere
as we pray, Have mercy on your servant,
we laugh as my father tells Father Keith
the sermon can only be as long
as the pole at the entrance to the building.
We pray, Grant him your peace,
and I weep for the impending loss,
and then we laugh as I tell Dad
for the first time he has a front-row seat
for the service (he strongly
prefers the back row).
And mom delivers an impromptu sermon
and the priest steps back and listens.
And we fondly remember how my childhood priest
would sing the longest rite in the book,
and my brother and I look at each other
and recite in unison, this fragile earth our island home,
and we break into irrational joy.
We pray The Sursum Corda, The Sanctus,
The Lord’s Prayer, my voice
barely a whisper through tears,
then we’re laughing again as we remember
how Dad and my brother would escape
the service as fast as they could to go cast
in the river behind the church, and
there in the hospice room, we keep the feast,
Alleluia, alleluia. And all day long,
though perhaps we speak of football
or grilling or ducks, with every word, every tear,
every laugh, we are saying, Peace be with you.
With every hug, every kiss, every
touch, every breath, we respond,
And also with you.