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Tell Me Where It Hurts
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So there you are.....sitting with the death of a pet, a parent-
oh God- a child, right in your lap. There are no words to
describe the despair or the anger that racks your quivering
frame- no way to dig your way out of the hole you've
fallen into...there are no angels in sight.
All you can manage is to point to the ragged hole in your chest
and say, "That's where my heart was once" - and then the lonely
hours begin to pile up like dust in the corners. Like the grayest
snow at the end of an endless winter, and you wonder how in
the world you will ever be whole again?
I have not lost a child, but I have had losses...a parent,
pets, friends......ideals...and none of it would I have survived as
intact as I am today, without the freedom and the healing I've
been able to find in to writing it out.
If you think of poetry as a way to healthily mourn, a way
to fling out tears like stars to illumine the way back to
soundness and sanity, it can be the most welcome conduit
in the world for setting things to rights. It's in the ability
to set it down, read it back~ feel the thing- but at a
safe distance- that you'll be able to avail yourself
of the focus mourning requires.
There's no way around it-- one must plow through it. To dig up
the grief and gnaw at its roots-- it's bitter, but it's the
food the soul and heart require to get on with life, to survive,
one must plunge into it, to come back out of it whole.
What better way than with the exercise- (or the exorcise) of writing
those demons out? When the poet's mind is engaged in sounds and
composition, the grief plays through like the tenderest music--
we befriend it. We begin slowly and painfully to understand
that life is loss--- and through loss comes the enlightenment
of what is truly meaningful- and the joy that the lost had
given us - why we loved them - and how are hearts are
shaped. Poetry is one of the most accessible grief
therapies in the world. Why not use it?
Can it heal?
You bet it can-- so tell yourself where it hurts- and tell us too.
Chances are we've been there, or we're facing it ourselves.
Poetry forms a ring-- its little 'word hands' joining
this one to the next, and to the next, till we've come
full circle at the end. Our lives are cantos.
And some of the songs are sad.
Those are the richest.
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