Grief, a poem.

Whether grief is a mountain range
towering high above you,

or an unsettling hum
in a desert
you didn’t know
you’d have to travel through,

a volcano,
indiscriminate
as it wildly erupts,

or an earthquake
that never prepares you
before it breaks everything up,

a storm of waves that turn the ocean
into an inescapable dome

a starless void of silence
millions of light years from home,

for whatever shape grief takes,
its presence claims space,
unapologetically pushing the boundaries
of logic, time, and place.

You are not a failure
when you cannot
make the grief just
“go away.”

It’ll take time
to move through this landscape
and I hope you know
that’s okay.

- Morgan Harper Nichols

Star Light, Star Bright

Under stars in late October cold

you asked, if stars are sun,

why is ours much bigger than the rest.

I said, because they're far away.

As far away as Grammy's house, you asked.

Farther still, I said, much farther. 

Where is Grammy now, you asked.

Her body's in the ground, I said,

but maybe what she really was is up there somewhere shining down

like starlight you and I can feel

all around us on a night like this.

You stood in silence for awhile

gazing up, one thoughtful hand

resting lightly on my shoulder,

one stretched out and turned palm up

as if to catch the starlight.

Then you said, almost singing

    what a pretty feeling

    to be a little star,

    white, and beautiful.

I could feel the whole heart of you

lifting dreams beyond the reach

of earthbound limitations and I

love you more than you will know

until I'm starlight and you understand

how each of us needs little stars

to lift our dreams beyond ourselves

and I was hers, and you were mine.

- W.D. Ehrhart

September has come, it is hers

Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,
Whose nature prefers
Trees without leaves and a fire in the fire-place;
So I give her this month and the next
Though the whole of my year should be hers who has
rendered already
So many of its days intolerable or perplexed
But so many more so happy;
Who has left a scent on my life and left my walls
Dancing over and over with her shadow,
Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls
And all of London littered with remembered kisses.

- Louise MacNeice, from "Autumn"

If I should die, and leave you here awhile
Be not like others sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust and weep.
For my sake, turn again to life, and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort weaker hearts than thine.
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine,
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you!

- Mary Lee Hall

There is a voice inside of you
that whispers all day long,
'I feel that this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.'
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
or wise man can decide
what's right for you - just listen to
the voice that speaks inside.
- Shel Silverstein

Not for all the whiskey in heaven
Not for all the flies in Vermont
Not for all the tears in the basement
Not for a million trips to Mars

Not if you paid me in diamonds
Not if you paid me in pearls
Not if you gave me your pinky ring
Not if you gave me your curls

Not for all the fire in hell
Not for all the blue in the sky
Not for an empire of my own
Not even for peace of mind

No, never, I’ll never stop loving you
Not till my heart beats its last
And even then in my words and my songs
I will love you all over again
- Charles Bernstein

You’ve survived every single day,
for as long as you’ve been alive.
You could spit fire if you wanted.
- Clementine von Radics

Rain on roof outside window, gray light, deep covers and warm blankets. Rain and nip of autumn in air; nostalgia, itch to work better and bigger. That crisp edge of autumn.
- Sylvia Plath

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

- Maya Angelou

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day.
- Robert Frost

He was my North, my South , my East and my West
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

- W.H. Auden

I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny,
but we can have lots of good fun that is funny.
- The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss

A phoenix never
apologizes for
turning into ashes
before rising to
meet its rebirth.
Set yourself alight
if that is what it
takes to flourish.
- Noor Shirazie

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

- Naomi Shihab Nye 

Wherever you stand,
Be the soul of that place.
- Rumi

You are
a minute
of quiet

in a loud
shouting
world.
- Gabriel Gadfly

Draw a crazy picture, write a nutty poem, sing a mumble-gumble song, whistle through your comb. Do a loony-goony dance ‘cross the kitchen floor, put something silly in the world that ain’t been there before.

- Shel Silverstein