Poem

Many people find writing poetry about their loss can be a way of helping themselves through the grief process. While the grief experience is universal, it is also extremely personal. Here is a poem written by a friend of the Center's.

Reading Into Grief

I find notes from you
In your graceful hand
Whose letters curve
With imaginative flair.

Messages of love
And artistic promise
For me, your only son,
Painter, poet, musician...
You loved the Arts
And poetry kept you going,
You told me more than once.

Across the title page
Of your collected poetry,
Your cursive missive climbs.
Your poems remind us again
Of your vivid life of the senses.
Your words like flowers grow
Out of the silence.

Reading into this grief,
I feel your absence today
While my garden goes on
As usual, raising its mute blossoms
For the May sun to bless
With heaven’s colors.

This lonesomeness
For you pulls me under,
Deafened by the stillness
Without your voice reciting here.

There is the empty chair
Before your writing desk,
Your books on shelves you painted
White as the seashells
On your windowsill.

There in your photograph
You pose merrily in Santa’s hat
With bells to jingle while you laugh.
I can almost hear that beautiful music
Through the snowfall of winters gone.

The table where we gathered
And every room is too big
Without you. We have come full circle
To the season when you dreamed your life away,
And even then, the day turned bright
And trees swayed with singing birds.
How can there be so much beauty in the world
Without your newest poem?

This May morning full of light
Brings little comfort.
Heavy with grief,
I long for your smile, my mother’s touch,
Your latest loving thoughts
For life and all of us.


Ward Smith

Find us at www.griefcounselor.org