You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
~James Baldwin
Poems of empathy and encouragement today. If you'd like more, visit Poems to Lean On from a 2013 post.
Lodged
by Robert Frost
The rain to the wind said,
'You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged--though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.
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To Know The Dark
by Wendell Berry
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
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excerpt from A Home in Dark Grass
by Robert Bly
We did not come to remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves like the trees,
The trees that are broken
And start again, drawing up on great roots;
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The Miss Rumphius Effect is the Poetry Friday host today.
10 comments:
All so beautiful, Tabatha. I love "To Know The Dark", the others too. I need to go to work, but will look at those on your link later! Thank you!
What a great post -- love the poems and James Baldwin quote. Zinnia photo is wonderful too :).
That Bly poem really slays me - it reminds me of the line from the Leonard Cohen:
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
....being human, right Tabatha, accepting imperfection.
Oh I love all those poems, Tabatha. I need reminding to read the old ones more often.
These are all wonderful. I adore Wendell Berry! And Frost and I share a NH heart!
Beautiful Wendell Berry poem. He is amazing. What a sense of comfort he gives in a few short lines.
You've captured so much wisdom in this post. I love the lines from Bly. Thank you for sharing.
A lovely post.
I don't need these now, and for that I give thanks. But I will need them someday, and for that I give YOU thanks!
Tabatha,
My boys are adopted from the foster care system. When they were young, I was sad about all that they had been through, but it seems like my grief has grown exponentially as they have grown toward adulthood, and I have watched the long term effects of abandonment and abuse. These poems speak so loudly to my heart. I went and looked at the poems to lean on, but need to spend more time dwelling in them. Thank you!
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