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.
Staring at My Father’s Chair
Posted in Uncategorized on November 20, 2021| 9 Comments »
He isn’t in it, his chair,
the big brown one
that tilts forward
and reclines, but
the slip covers
on the arm rests
remember his hands—
they are worn
to a lighter shade
of brown. I imagine,
my own hands
could be a lighter shade
from all the times
he held them,
his thick fingers wrapped
around mine, his thumb
worrying a small circle
in my palm. May
I, too, be marked
by his touch—
may my palms
be threadbare.
reshaped by his love.
There Is Only the Field
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged antelope, daughter, death, father, field, hospice on November 19, 2021| 16 Comments »
On the day my father begins hospice,
I watch the pronghorn in the field,
marvel as their brown- and white-striped bodies
nearly disappear in the dead grass where
they graze. If only I could camouflage
my father so death can’t find him, so that pain
would never have discovered him.
Tomorrow, my mother and brother and I
will gather around him the way a herd
might gather, circling him as some antelope
circle their young. But death will come.
And we, unable to run fast enough,
unable to hide, will meet it together.
And if I could fight death, would I? Whatever horns
I have are more for ritual than dangerous.
When death arrives, I want to bring
my softest self. I won’t bargain,
but I’ll tell death it’s taking the best of us—
the one who worked hardest to survive.
When death arrives, I want to ask it, Please,
be gentle. He suffered so much already.
I want to tell death, You don’t get all of him.
I carry in me his goodness, his courage.
While I live, he will always be alive in this field.
Sacred Ground
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ground, holy, step on November 18, 2021| 8 Comments »
And if, as I now know, the closet
is sacred and the bare room
is sacred and the sidewalk
and classroom and the ER
are sacred, then I trip
into the teaching
that everywhere is sacred—
not only the church, but
the alley. Not only the mosque,
but the bench.
Not only the places in candlelight
where the air is pungent
and woody with myrrh.
I want to worship
at the shrine of everywhere,
want to know every inch
of this earth as an altar—
every walk, a pilgrimage.
Every step, a step
from holy to holy
to holy.
Sheer Truth of Impermanence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clouds, dad, daughter, grief, illness, impermanence on November 17, 2021| 18 Comments »
My father lies in his hospital bed,
eyes unseeing, unable to do more
than open and close his hand—
a wounded bird trying to fly—
his thoughts too wispy
to gather into sentences.
And then, quite clearly,
What is wrong with me?
I tell him, We don’t know.
And then, Is it my fault?
I want to gather him
into my arms and cradle him
the way he once cradled me.
No, Dad, I say. It’s not your fault.
You’re doing so good.
And then he is lost again,
cloud-minded, moaning,
his face a storm of pain.
Outside the window, the clouds
have lost their shape. The wind
pulls their thin white veil across the blue
like a translucent sheet.
In the coming days, there will be rain.
His eyes flash open, then close.
Hi, he says, his voice warm,
full of marvel. Hi, I say,
press my hands to his chest.
I’m pouring love into you, Dad.
He hums the little two-note song
he always hums in affirmation.
He is so beautifully himself.
Then you’re going to need—
His thought evaporates.
What do I need, dad?
I’m desperate for his answer.
What do I need to pour love into you?
He says, You’re going to need—
The sentence turns cirrostratus.
I kiss his head.
I kiss whatever went unsaid.
Neither of us knows what we need.
We hold each other and reach
for what we cannot hold.
Hands open, we wing into the moment,
into love, this sky where we meet.
Gonna Rise Up Singing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, cause and effect, daughter, eternity, mother, singing on November 15, 2021| 4 Comments »
What we do now echoes into eternity.
—Marcus Aurelius
If what we do now echoes into eternity,
then let there be more mornings such as this one
in which my mother wakes me by singing
a thin thread of melody
that praises the beauty of the day.
By breakfast, I feel the small reverberations
of her joy as they ricochet in me
chiming against loss and fear,
an unabashed gladness that rings
against the holy ribs,
that spirals inside the aortal caves,
that peals through the chasms of the hours.
By afternoon, it’s coruscating, resonating,
a bit of aural shine against the day’s ache,
helping me meet the world just
a bit more brightly.
Just think, after an eternity, how much
beauty might have come from one
simple tune sung by one open heart
willing to sing for one moment what is true.
I Didn’t Think I Could Do It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, dark, grief, light, mother, softening, son on November 15, 2021| 22 Comments »
But I found myself
rigid in the room where my son
took his life. And I sat
on the floor in the doorway
where he had last sat,
where his blood had pooled
and the air had briefly smelled
of burning. I sat there
beneath the wall
where the bullet had made
its narrow hole. I sat there
with my coil of sorrow.
I didn’t want to meet it.
I desperately wanted to meet it.
I wanted to give sorrow space.
I wanted to crawl inside it.
I wanted to be anywhere
but there on the dark wood floor
in the night dark room,
and I wanted to be wholly,
completely, obliteratingly there.
Fear-ridden, ferocious,I met it all,
felt the current pushing through.
Acceptance is a filament
that takes our resistance
and makes it bright,
makes it luminous enough
that we might see ourselves
exactly as we are.
I did not find my son
in that doorway. Perhaps
I had hoped I would.
But I saw the light
that came with me.
I softened into that light.
Becoming the Bird
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, emily dickinson, grief, hope, wind on November 14, 2021| 13 Comments »
Once on a bridge
I had met a hope,
a radiant maybe,
a glint of perhaps,
but I am so far
from that glint today
that when I stand
again on that bridge
I almost hate hope
with its stupid wings,
always promising
to carry us toward
something better.
I stand on that bridge
and stand on that bridge,
my inner perch
empty, silent.
I turn to face
the autumn wind.
It batters my bare skin.
I sing full-throat into the gale.
*This poem is in conversation with Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers …” which you can find here
Having Lost Sight Now of the Shore
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, grief, humanity, ocean on November 13, 2021| 7 Comments »
Wading into the ocean of grief,
I feel how the tides tug
at the story of how I arrived here—
the waves don’t tear my story away,
no, but float its fabric around me
till I wear it more loosely
and meet the raw self inside the story.
How many of us are here
in these waters learning
new ways to swim?
Already we’re deeper, deeper in.
Though it is a terrible gift to be here,
I fall in love with us all,
with our common humanity.
How sweet it is to meet each other
with our vulnerability glittering on our skin,
our bodies more buoyant
than we ever dreamed.
Adjusting to the Change
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, grief, serving, tea, waking on November 12, 2021| 8 Comments »
Just today I didn’t make you
a cup of chai—did not stir
in the dark clover honey,
did not warm the soy milk,
did not bring you the cup
with red flowers, the one
we got in Finland all those
years ago when we couldn’t
sleep with all that light—
instead I pour myself
into the black of morning.
There is sweetness here
in these quiet, predawn hours,
a vastness no cup could ever contain.
I want to serve it to you,
though I sense, love,
it is you serving it to me.
Kintsugi Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged broken heart, brokenness, friendship, grief, heart, kintsugi, loss on November 11, 2021| 14 Comments »
After the heart broke like a porcelain bowl,
when it shattered in pieces, scattered,
life itself reassembled the shards.
Friends bring their melted gold
to seal the bits together again.
I trace my fingers across the shining scars.
Some pieces will be missing forever.
Let me fall in love with what has been broken.
Let me dare to call it beautiful.