I am lucky.
My mother loved me enough
to birth me twice.
The first time she was
young and strong and fertile.
Her hips spread wide,
her breathing deep,
She bore down and pushing
gave me life.
Sprung forth one early morning
to the winter air I came.
We had a life together,
my mother and I,
some silent agreement
that she would see me through life,
saving me from myself indefinitely.
One early morning,
my mother decided to birth me again
--she loved me that much.
This time, older and sicker,
body withered, drawing in,
shallow breath in stony lungs,
she, grasping, gave me life.
One early spring morning,
coldly lovingly she left
--and I came to my life again.
Our agreement broken
Or altogether different
Than I thought it was.
My mother birthed me twice.
She loved me that much.
I am lucky.
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Poem: I am clear
I've made up the dishes
and dried off the bed
I'm wandering woman
I'm walking while dead
and the voices I hear
have escaped from my head.
I've paid all the houseplants
and watered the bills
I'm listening softly,
and crying at will
and the person I pawned
is becoming me still.
I'm sorry I hate you
I'm happy you left
I'm dodging my feelings
and weaving the weft
I'm wheeling and dealing
with a hand that is deft
I'm writing my eulogy
sealing the chest
I'm toasting the people
who treated me best
I'm taking the good things
and leaving the rest
I am clear, I am clear, I am clear.
and dried off the bed
I'm wandering woman
I'm walking while dead
and the voices I hear
have escaped from my head.
I've paid all the houseplants
and watered the bills
I'm listening softly,
and crying at will
and the person I pawned
is becoming me still.
I'm sorry I hate you
I'm happy you left
I'm dodging my feelings
and weaving the weft
I'm wheeling and dealing
with a hand that is deft
I'm writing my eulogy
sealing the chest
I'm toasting the people
who treated me best
I'm taking the good things
and leaving the rest
I am clear, I am clear, I am clear.
Poem: A Prayer
This poem has particular significance as I wrote it a month to the day before my mother passed away. I then read it at her funeral, where I promised to pursue writing - one of two things she always adamantly encouraged me to do. It was even featured in online magazine, The Vyne.
I can feel our lives slipping away from us,
Oh God,
from both of us and through our tiny hands - away.
I can feel the weight of mortality
rushing at me with full force contact
--the push of life's large ebbs and flows, at once.
At once I am knocked over and yet buoyed to the surface
--carried to shore and carried to sea.
I can feel the darkness
looming out just beyond the horizon, beyond the beyond.
I cannot see the start and stop
I cannot see beginning or end
I cannot grip what is slipping away from me,
Oh God.
I do not know which way I'm facing
I cannot read the starry sky,
Oh God.
I never could, but then again,
I never thought I'd have to
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
Oh God.
--my chest an angry chamber
--inner sanctum beating hollow
The resonance of solitude is
unwelcome in this world.
I want to find the shore,
Oh God,
to see the tide receding,
to know that I am anchored safely
in the harbor of your love.
I feel the living rhythm of the sea song now,
Oh God.
The gentle lull, the violent crash
The ebb and flow of masterful love.
I breathe the salted mist of prayer,
remembering the vastness of the ocean.
It doesn't scare me now, the bigger you and smaller me - the smaller we.
Together we bob in and out of this,
feeling somehow at peace,
even as we feel ourselves continuing to slip away,
through our tiny hands
I can feel our lives slipping away from us,
Oh God,
from both of us and through our tiny hands - away.
I can feel the weight of mortality
rushing at me with full force contact
--the push of life's large ebbs and flows, at once.
At once I am knocked over and yet buoyed to the surface
--carried to shore and carried to sea.
I can feel the darkness
looming out just beyond the horizon, beyond the beyond.
I cannot see the start and stop
I cannot see beginning or end
I cannot grip what is slipping away from me,
Oh God.
I do not know which way I'm facing
I cannot read the starry sky,
Oh God.
I never could, but then again,
I never thought I'd have to
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
Oh God.
--my chest an angry chamber
--inner sanctum beating hollow
The resonance of solitude is
unwelcome in this world.
I want to find the shore,
Oh God,
to see the tide receding,
to know that I am anchored safely
in the harbor of your love.
I feel the living rhythm of the sea song now,
Oh God.
The gentle lull, the violent crash
The ebb and flow of masterful love.
I breathe the salted mist of prayer,
remembering the vastness of the ocean.
It doesn't scare me now, the bigger you and smaller me - the smaller we.
Together we bob in and out of this,
feeling somehow at peace,
even as we feel ourselves continuing to slip away,
through our tiny hands
Poem: Lie to me
We are afraid--
The world of us--to tell each other our secrets.
In hidden rooms, with jammed tight doors,
we suffer silently per protocol,
make messes of our messes.
if we would stand straight, eye to eye,
confessing our disaster...
Perhaps we'd find each other in our messes,
and our masses would seem masterfully drawn
together in the larger open spaces of our togetherness
where doors don't jam
and people cry
and laugh
and hold each other
instead of keeping secrets.
The world of us--to tell each other our secrets.
In hidden rooms, with jammed tight doors,
we suffer silently per protocol,
make messes of our messes.
if we would stand straight, eye to eye,
confessing our disaster...
Perhaps we'd find each other in our messes,
and our masses would seem masterfully drawn
together in the larger open spaces of our togetherness
where doors don't jam
and people cry
and laugh
and hold each other
instead of keeping secrets.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Bridges
Last night, I had the great fortune of hosting two of my closest girlfriends at my apartment. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been a night of good dinner, good wine, and even better conversation -- and it was, it just happened amongst boxes, piles of paper and long-forgotten dry-cleaning. Most important was the fact that it was actually an intervention. I had called these women over to help me climb out of 'my bag' as my grandmother might say.
This 'bag' was and is a psychic space that I find myself in after the death of my mother and the dissolution of (what I thought was) a very serious relationship. After months of walking around boxes and stacking and re-stacking mail on the 'other' side of the bed, I had had enough. I had moved in almost 6 months ago and the living room (where I used to host all manner of delicious and engaging events) looked like I had just arrived yesterday. My bookshelves, although fully unpacked, were teeming with tchotchkes and unread volumes begging to be let go. My desk's vertical filing system had been woefully neglected and I was breeding dust-bunnies around the baseboards. Needless to say, a cluttered space reflects a cluttered mind. I needed help, and quickly.
The funny thing about grief is that it's just numbing enough to make you think you're functioning. You're getting up, you're going to work, the bills get paid, the laundry gets done, but you are numb really. The little things that seem normal or even enjoyable in some regard begin to slip, like coking for yourself, "I'll just order pizza again," or things that are never reasonable become reasonable in your mind "I'll sort through the last 8 issues of The Chronicle of Higher Education this weekend, in my free time." There is no basis in reality that you cannot or should not have pizza for dinner 3 times a week (at least not topped with sausage and pepperoni - no wonder your blood pressure is high!) You can't believe that it will take you longer than 30 minutes to get through approximately 800 pages of musings and articles on the world of academe. You are young, you are smart, you have been to school -- for a loooooong time -- you have run races, and done fasts. You are indestructible and 'on it' -- until you realize you are not. Well you might be, but you are also human, and you are broken and you are standing at the shore of very choppy waters trying to cross over into the place that is more familiar to you, the land of 'Get-it-togetherville."
Enter the bridge, or in this case, the bridges. They arrived relatively promptly (by our sister standards at least), bearing the requisite libations and offering hugs full of, "Don't worry, we're here and we'll get this done." I ushered them up the stairs into the mess. There had been no parties, no dinners, no casual get-togethers in 6 months. No socializing, no nothing. But here they were, my girls. Years of friendship, gallons of tears and reels of funny moments danced between us as they laid themselves down over my cluttered space and mind and mapped out the next 6 months of how I was going to 'deal'. First, we talked about their recent and impending nuptials over full glasses of Montepulciano and plates of Pad Thai. But then we finished our meal and got back to the task at hand. One opened another bottle of wine, the other went to my whiteboard and immediately started to identify what would be short and long term tasks. We covered wellness first ("How are you?" and "How is your family?" "Are you getting enough sleep? Of course you aren't.") When they were sufficiently convinced that I was just sad, not suicidal and that a little organization and a few words of encouragement were what I needed most, we could get back to things like, "Do you need two Mardi Gras masks? Really?"
I won't bore you with more details of the night, but two things are worth highlighting. 1) My mess was not nearly as big or insurmountable as I thought it was and 2) It took my girlfriends, responding to my clarion call to lovingly, and objectively to tell me "No, this is not ANYTHING like that hoarder show. Girl have you SEEN that show??" and remind me that grief is a process and a journey that no matter how smart or determined I am, I cannot accelerate. It simply cannot be done. This is what the sturdy, beautifully made, majestic bridges told me as they laid themselves down over my life. So with that, as we organized the Chronicles for recycling, hung up all the cardigans, and finished the wine, I started to cross over the choppy water, thankful that I didn't have to swim.
This 'bag' was and is a psychic space that I find myself in after the death of my mother and the dissolution of (what I thought was) a very serious relationship. After months of walking around boxes and stacking and re-stacking mail on the 'other' side of the bed, I had had enough. I had moved in almost 6 months ago and the living room (where I used to host all manner of delicious and engaging events) looked like I had just arrived yesterday. My bookshelves, although fully unpacked, were teeming with tchotchkes and unread volumes begging to be let go. My desk's vertical filing system had been woefully neglected and I was breeding dust-bunnies around the baseboards. Needless to say, a cluttered space reflects a cluttered mind. I needed help, and quickly.
The funny thing about grief is that it's just numbing enough to make you think you're functioning. You're getting up, you're going to work, the bills get paid, the laundry gets done, but you are numb really. The little things that seem normal or even enjoyable in some regard begin to slip, like coking for yourself, "I'll just order pizza again," or things that are never reasonable become reasonable in your mind "I'll sort through the last 8 issues of The Chronicle of Higher Education this weekend, in my free time." There is no basis in reality that you cannot or should not have pizza for dinner 3 times a week (at least not topped with sausage and pepperoni - no wonder your blood pressure is high!) You can't believe that it will take you longer than 30 minutes to get through approximately 800 pages of musings and articles on the world of academe. You are young, you are smart, you have been to school -- for a loooooong time -- you have run races, and done fasts. You are indestructible and 'on it' -- until you realize you are not. Well you might be, but you are also human, and you are broken and you are standing at the shore of very choppy waters trying to cross over into the place that is more familiar to you, the land of 'Get-it-togetherville."
Enter the bridge, or in this case, the bridges. They arrived relatively promptly (by our sister standards at least), bearing the requisite libations and offering hugs full of, "Don't worry, we're here and we'll get this done." I ushered them up the stairs into the mess. There had been no parties, no dinners, no casual get-togethers in 6 months. No socializing, no nothing. But here they were, my girls. Years of friendship, gallons of tears and reels of funny moments danced between us as they laid themselves down over my cluttered space and mind and mapped out the next 6 months of how I was going to 'deal'. First, we talked about their recent and impending nuptials over full glasses of Montepulciano and plates of Pad Thai. But then we finished our meal and got back to the task at hand. One opened another bottle of wine, the other went to my whiteboard and immediately started to identify what would be short and long term tasks. We covered wellness first ("How are you?" and "How is your family?" "Are you getting enough sleep? Of course you aren't.") When they were sufficiently convinced that I was just sad, not suicidal and that a little organization and a few words of encouragement were what I needed most, we could get back to things like, "Do you need two Mardi Gras masks? Really?"
I won't bore you with more details of the night, but two things are worth highlighting. 1) My mess was not nearly as big or insurmountable as I thought it was and 2) It took my girlfriends, responding to my clarion call to lovingly, and objectively to tell me "No, this is not ANYTHING like that hoarder show. Girl have you SEEN that show??" and remind me that grief is a process and a journey that no matter how smart or determined I am, I cannot accelerate. It simply cannot be done. This is what the sturdy, beautifully made, majestic bridges told me as they laid themselves down over my life. So with that, as we organized the Chronicles for recycling, hung up all the cardigans, and finished the wine, I started to cross over the choppy water, thankful that I didn't have to swim.
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