Reflection, Contemplation, Hope
Heavy
From Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver
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 the 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, and maybe
also troubled—
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?
•••
Grief is like a ball of string, you start at one end and wind. Then the ball slips through your fingers and rolls across the floor. Some of your work is undone but not all. You pick it up and start over again, but you never have to begin again at the end of the string. The ball never completely unwinds. You've made some progress.
-Author Unknown
•••
A Mother
By Beth Ellithorpe
Reprinted from Heartbeats: A Collection of Poems compiled by the Center for Loss in Multiple Birth (CLIMB), Inc.
Am I?
Was I?
When people ask,
“ Do you have any kids?”
Did I?
Do I explain this horrible tragedy?
I was a mother for 20 minutes.
Was I?
I gave birth to babies,
Does that make me a mother?
Or do I simply know in my heart
that I had babies and I am a Mom
to my twins?
They know.
I know.