153 Sorrow and grieving poems

I don’t know what to say to you, neighbor, as you shovel snow from your part of our street neat in your Greek black. I’ve waited for chance to find words; now, by chance, we meet. We took our boys to the same kindergarten, thirteen years ago when our husbands went. Both boys hated school, dropped out feral, dropped in to separate troubles. You shift snow fast, back bent, but your boy killed himself, six days dead. My boy washed your wall when the police were done. He says, “We weren’t friends?” and shakes his head, “I told him it was great he had that gun,” and shakes. I shake, close to you, close to you. You have a path to clear, and so you do.

Elizabeth Bishop leaned on a table, it cracked, both fell to the floor. A gesture gone sadly awry. This was close to fact and quickly became symbolic, bound to occur in Florida, where she was surrounded by rotting abundance and greedy insects. One moment a laughing smile, a graceful hand alighting on solid furniture, a casual shift of weight, the next, undignified splayed legs. The shell of the table proved to be stuffed with termite eggs. True, it was a fall from no great height— merely the height of herself, and although the hollowed-out table failed, at least the floor held, though probably infested by termites as well, and possibly built on a latent sinkhole, how can you tell? And how could she, smiling and easy, arm moving without forethought and permission, have forgotten fear, apparently let go of a hard-learned lesson? Enter a room as though it is strange. What you recognize may have changed, or may change without warning. Trees fall in hurricanes and on windless mornings, breaching houses where people you knew have vanished or died or stopped loving you.

The wind flapp'd loose, the wind was still, Shaken out dead from tree and hill: I had walk'd on at the wind's will,— I sat now, for the wind was still. Between my knees my forehead was,— My lips, drawn in, said not Alas! My hair was over in the grass, My naked ears heard the day pass. My eyes, wide open, had the run Of some ten weeds to fix upon; Among those few, out of the sun, The woodspurge flower'd, three cups in one. From perfect grief there need not be Wisdom or even memory: One thing then learnt remains to me,— The woodspurge has a cup of three.

The sinew of the hickory that grips The axe, the rasp of salt against the skin, Or rockbound earth that shines the steel plough In spring, are thought along our coast to lend A native character, though none can match The force of grief: compare the fisherman’s Scored cheeks; the ligaments that rope the necks Of lumberjacks; or the farmer’s gnarled wrist— Compare these with the widow’s fisted look, Then judge who has the most to bear. Think of The ghost that each night slips between her sheets Or of the sudden joy of being alone Which troubles her for weeks. And you, who thought Him mean, or too devoted to his drink, Consider how the common fingerstones, Bathed in the tidal slabs, grow luminous.

The shock comes slowly as an afterthought. First you hear the words and they are like all other words, ordinary, breathing out of lips, moving toward you in a straight line. Later they shatter and rearrange themselves. They spell something else hidden in the muscles of the face, something the throat wanted to say. Decoded, the message etches itself in acid so every syllable becomes a sore. The shock blooms into a carbuncle. The body bends to accommodate it. A special scarf has to be worn to conceal it. It is now the size of a head. The next time you look, it has grown two eyes and a mouth. It is difficult to know which to use. Now you are seeing everything twice. After a while it becomes an old friend. It reminds you every day of how it came to be.

At the edge of the city the pickerel vomits and dies. The river with its white hair staggers to the sea. My life lay crumpled like a smashed car. Windows barred, ivy, square stone. Lines gather at mouth and at eyes like cracks in a membrane. Eyeballs and tongue spill on the floor in a puddle of yolks and whites. The intact 707 under the clear wave, the sun shining. The playhouse of my grandfather’s mother stands north of the shed: spiders and the dolls’ teacups of dead women. In Ohio the K Mart shrugs; it knows it is going to die. A stone, the closed eye of the dirt. Outside before dawn houses sail up like wrecks from the bottom of the sea. A door clicks; a light opens. If the world is a dream, so is the puffed stomach of Juan, and the rich in Connecticut are dreamers. There are bachelors who live in shacks made of oil cans and broken doors, who stitch their shirts until the cloth disappears under stitches, who collect nails in Ball jars. A trolley car comes out of the elms, the tracks laid through an acre of wheat stubble, slanting downhill. I board it, and cross the field into the new pine.

Ye flowery banks o' bonie Doon, How can ye blume sae fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care? Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird, That sings upon the bough; Thou minds me o' the happy days, When my fause love was true. Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird, That sings beside thy mate; For sae I sat, and sae I sang, And wist na o' my fate. Aft hae I rov'd by bonie Doon To see the wood-bine twine, And ilka bird sang o' its luve, And sae did I o' mine. Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose Frae aff its thorny tree; And my fause luver staw my rose But left the thorn wi' me.

Fragile like a child is fragile. Destined not to be forever. Destined to become other To mother. Here I am Sitting on a chair, thinking About you. Thinking About how it was To talk to you. How sometimes it was wonderful And sometimes it was awful. How drugs when drugs were Undid the good almost entirely But not entirely Because good could always be seen Glimmering like lame glimmers In the window of a shop Called Beautiful Things Never Last Forever. I loved you. I love you. You were. And you are. Life is experience. It's all so simple. Experience is The chair we sit on. The sitting. The thinking Of you where you are a blank To be filled In by missing. I loved you. I love you like I love All beautiful things. True beauty is truly seldom. You were. You are In May. May now is looking onto The June that is coming up. This is how I measure The year. Everything Was My Fault Has been the theme of the song I've been singing, Even when you've told me to quiet. I haven't been quiet. I've been crying. I think you Have forgiven me. You keep Putting your hand on my shoulder When I'm crying. Thank you for that. And For the ineffable sense Of continuance. You were. You are The brightest thing in the shop window And the most beautiful seldom I ever saw.

Of course they are empty shells, without hope of animation. Of course they are artifacts. Even if my sister and I should wear some, or if we give others away, they will always be your clothes without you, as we will always be your daughters without you.

We used to like talking about grief Our journals and letters were packed with losses, complaints, and sorrows. Even if there was no grief we wouldn’t stop lamenting as though longing for the charm of a distressed face. Then we couldn’t help expressing grief So many things descended without warning: labor wasted, loves lost, houses gone, marriages broken, friends estranged, ambitions worn away by immediate needs. Words lined up in our throats for a good whining. Grief seemed like an endless river— the only immortal flow of life. After losing a land and then giving up a tongue, we stopped talking of grief Smiles began to brighten our faces. We laugh a lot, at our own mess. Things become beautiful, even hailstones in the strawberry fields.