If Grief Can Be A Doorway To Love, Then Let Us All Weep For The World We Are Breaking Apart So We Can

“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013, p. 359)

Some warm poetry, for cold evenings:

Molly Fisk, “Winter Sun” (We can make do with so little / just the hint of warmth, the slanted light.)

Pat Schneider, “The Patience of Ordinary Things” (It is a kind of love, is it not? / how the cup holds the tea.)

Barbara Ras, “Bite Every Sorrow” (You can speak a foreign language, sometimes / and it can mean something.)

Jack Gilbert, “Failing and Flying” (Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.)

Lisel Mueller, “Things” (Even what was beyond us / was recast in our image; / we gave the country a heart, / the storm an eye)

Rabindranath Tagore, “On the Seashore” (The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach / On the seashore of endless worlds children meet)

John O’Donohue, “Matins” (May I live this day / Compassionate of heart / Gentle in word / Courageous in thought)

Wallace Stevens, “The House Was Quiet and The World Was Calm” (The summer night is like a perfection of thought. / The house was quiet because it had to be)

Brian Patten, “Inessential Things” (Cats remember what is essential of days)

Emily Dickinson, “Simplicity” (How happy is the little stone / that rambles in the road, alone)

Yi Lu, “Valley’s Green” (flowers like tiny saucers — little bowls — little cups / filled to the brim with their own colors)

Jacques Prévert, “How to Paint a Bird’s Portrait” (When the bird comes / if it comes / observe the most profound silence)

Archibald MacLeish, “Eleven” (Happy as though he had no name, as though
 / He had been no one: like a leaf, a stem,
 / Like a root growing…)

Denise Levertov, “A Woman Alone” (Then / self-pity dries up, a joy / untainted by guilt lifts her. / She has fears, but not about loneliness)

Richard Brautigan, “Your Catfish Friend” (I’d love you and be your catfish / friend and drive such lonely / thoughts from your mind)

Linda Gregg, “The Letter” (I’m not feeling strong yet, but I am taking
 / good care of myself)

Andrew Lang, “Ballade of True Wisdom” (And I’d leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray, / For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers)

Ada Limón, “The Raincoat” (my whole life I’ve been under her / raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel / that I never got wet.)

Jorge Luis Borges, “The Just” (These people, unaware, are saving the world)

Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things” (I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.)

Joanna Klink, from The Nightfields

Nikki Giovanni, from “Mirrors”

[Text ID: … but It Cannot Be A Mistake to have cared … It Cannot Be An Error to have tried … It Cannot Be Incorrect to have loved]

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Hi do u know any poems on trauma?

hi, you could try looking through my tags #the great wound, #the body as a haunted house, or #la sonnambula which encompass trauma + trauma responses. you could also check out andrea gibson’s collection of poetry called the madness vase, mahtem shiferraw’s collection called your body is war, tara hardy’s my, my, my, my, my, ada limón’s bright dead things, tarfia faizullah’s seam, or alice notley’s in the pines. and finally a few poems below the cut:

“The violence we read about goes down. To trace some kinds I’ve known, I’d have to violate telling; because violence doesn’t always proceed directly from body to body. It flows from the heart to as far as the heart can’t see.”

alice notley, from in the pines; “the black trailer”

nikki giovanni, from “crutches”

tara hardy, “my, my, my, my, my”

h.d., from “envy”

marie howe, “magdalene: the addict”

mahtem shiferraw, your body is war; “your body is war (ii)”

ada limón, “before”

“What do I do with the loss I have? you ask. Now that I have survived, I have this.”

alice notley, from “in the pines”