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Wednesday, March 12, 2014

On carrying grief when you cannot, or would not put it down

I am aware of many people who are carrying grief these days.

Mary Oliver speaks to this so well in: Heavy, from her volume Thirst.

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had His hand in this,

as well as friends,
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel
(brave even among lions).
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it--
books, bricks, grief--
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, any maybe

also troubled--
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?

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