Perhaps I once thought I knew
what it meant to heal—to be good as new,
to be stitched back together, unbruised,
unblemished, in no pain, repaired.
But what is healing to the heart
when it has lost a beloved?
Surely not to forget the loss happened
the way the lungs forget bronchitis.
Surely not to stop the ache
the way bones reknit and forget
the break. Surely not to shun sadness,
when sadness is the only thing
that makes sense.
Is it strange that deeply broken
is the only way now I feel whole?
Posts Tagged ‘sadness’
Healing the Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, healing, sadness, wholeness on March 14, 2023| 3 Comments »
Whatever It Means
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aliveness, love, outside, sadness on October 31, 2020| 5 Comments »
Certain I can’t carry
another sadness,
I step outside
and let the shine
of the mid-morning sun
stroke my cheek
like a lover.
And the air has a strange
bright citrus tang,
and I inhale it
again and again.
Whatever it means
to be alive,
it has something
to do with this—
the scent of leaf
and soil and shadow.
The astonishing warmth
of a late October day.
The weight
of loving another,
that weight
without which
I would be nothing.
After Hearing the Heartbreaking News
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, sadness, shoes on May 8, 2020| 15 Comments »
Tonight, life wears me like
an old pair of shoes. The kind
it can slip its feet into
without untying the laces.
The kind of shoes a mother
would probably throw out
thinking of the act as a favor.
Life is tired, tonight,
of running. Doesn’t want
to dress to impress. It just
wants to know that it goes on,
especially tonight when
events seem to point
to the contrary. And so
though I am down at the heel
and shabby, life slips into me
as if life depended on it.
And we walk in the moonlight,
cry. And howl. Then take another step.
And then another.
The Way It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged happiness, paradox, poem, poetry, sadness on May 30, 2015| 2 Comments »
A woman sits in the park
in the grass, and she is happy.
It is not that she does not know
that all over the world, even
in her own twisting heart,
terrible things are happening.
It is not that she is trying
to pretend she does not know.
It is more, perhaps, that the happiness
rises up and she does not try
to pretend it isn’t there. Yes,
there it is, beside the growling burrs
of sadness, letting loose
all its tiny white parasol seeds
just as a dandelion does.
Some of them fly beyond her sight.
Some land in her sweater
and will not be pulled out,
no matter how hard she tries.
Tuesday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged life, poem, poetry, sadness on March 18, 2014| 2 Comments »
As it is, I would rather be
a something else today. A vine
or a wind or a crocus leaping
purple-ish and fragile out of the earth.
Or rather to be the bulb that did not
come up. No one to please and no one
to disappoint and keenly unaware
of so much misery. I am not suggesting
that today is not a blessing.
I do not mean to be ungrateful
for this precious, amazing life.
There are plenty of reasons to fall
in love with the world today, including
the wind, the crocus, the bulbs and the
hands that planted them, but I
am too tired for falling in love,
and my pockets are full of sadnesses.
Which is perhaps, another reason
to fall in love with the world,
the fact that I have pockets at all,
only it’s very quiet. And resembles
a bruise. And very not what
I thought love was. I would curl
into a corner, but no corner
is small enough. There is always
more space. And every wall
becomes a mirror. And every
sorrow seems to smile at me
with gentle eyes and say,
it isn’t what you thought
it was now, is it?
Interior Weather Report
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fog, great blue whale, parenting, poem, poetry, sadness, tetrameter, weather on November 6, 2013| 1 Comment »
Yesterday, a low gray haze.
A fog. A blur. A sullen shroud.
At dinnertime my young boy says,
Mom, can you guess how much a cloud
would weigh? I guess a thousand pounds.
No, more, Mom, guess again, he says.
Two million pounds? He says, Go down.
I give, I say. He looks away,
then tells me, Half a great blue whale.
And guess how much a storm cloud weighs?
I say, I give again, and smile.
A whole blue whale, he says, then splays
his hands in thrill, and says, Guess how
much hurricanes would weigh?
This time I guesstimate too low—
Perhaps two hundred whales, I say.
By now I’m curious about
how many pods of great blue whales
could swim in squalls of heartsick doubt
and grief, the pea soup kind that swelled
up yesterday. Three hundred whales,
he tells me and I wonder if
the same great number found their way
into my brooding thoughts. He shifts
the conversation to how heat
is what makes clouds suspend up high.
Meanwhile, a foggy thought repeats.
A dozen great blue whales swim by.
What We Do When We Can Do Nothing Else
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, hardship, love, poem, poetry, sadness, support, trouble on October 26, 2012| 2 Comments »
What We Do When We Can Do Nothing Else
When trouble comes
with its long gray dress
and its hungry eyes
and its basket of woe,
when trouble comes
with its insomnia
and note past due
that you know you can never pay,
when trouble comes
with its refusal to let you
be bailed out this time
no matter how crisp
the hundreds are,
I do not want to be
the one who lies to you
and says it will all be okay.
I don’t want to play
the teacher and talk
about how the world
erodes us until we shine.
I want to be the one
who holds your hand,
though, even if it is
from many hundreds
of miles away, and
even if you do not hear me
say it, I will be thinking,
miracles happen,
and you are one.
I will write you a poem
made of doors, all
of them open,
even the one
that trouble walks in,
even the one
that trouble walks out.