Grief

I was working on a cocky post about getting my mojo back, when as often happens life kicked me in the stomach. I needed to weigh in on the Episcopal memorial service for my mother, and in deference to my own and my family's lack of religion, I went looking for poems to use in the bulletin/handout, and as possible readings during the service. I have a kick-ass electronic filing system I could tell you about if you were interested. I looked up "poetry" and "grief" and my goodness, I had a lot of stuff there. Some of it is from when my sister died, and other items I have run across since. I hadn't remembered it all, but emotions came flooding back. I took the time to wallow. Here for your reading pleasure are some of the items.

Remember by Christina Rosetti

 

Remember me when I am gone away,

         Gone far away into the silent land;

         When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

         You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

         Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

         And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

         For if the darkness and corruption leave

         A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

         Than that you should remember and be sad.

Wave of sorrow

Do not drown me now.

I see the island

Still ahead somehow.

I see the island

And its sands are fair.

Wave of sorrow

Take me there.

-Langston Hughes

 

 

Dirge Without Music 

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind;

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned

With lilies and laurel they go: but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains--but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love--

They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled

Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind:

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

 

The Flower

 

How Fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

Are thy returns! ev'n as the flowers in spring;

To which, besides their own demean,

The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.

Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart

Could have recover'd greennesse? It was gone

Quite under ground; as flowers depart

To see their mother-root, when they have blown;

Where they together

All the hard weather,

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

 

George Herbert 

i carry your heart with me

by e. e. cummings

 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                        i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

 

 

Subtle but Resilient

All of life is interconnected and ongoing. There is no death to the spirit of those I love. As I mourn the physical passing of my beloved, I open to meet her anew in an ongoing spiritual connection. Subtle but resilient, our relationship goes forward. As I open my heart to continued connection, I encounter the spark of intuition, the lamp of guidance which signals the shared ongoing path. Those who leave me do so only in body. The physical vehicle falls away but the beloved spirit continues to live and even to prosper. Ours is a journey of shared hearts. Death is a passageway, not an ending. As I open my heart to continued connection, my beloved is carried forward by my love.

Today, I am brave enough to open to continued connection. I am alert to small signs and signals which speak to me of my beloveds' ongoing presence.

 

Julia Cameron