// Five Poems for Grievers on a Day for Lovers

(Reminder: Grievers and Lovers are one in the same.)

Talking to Grief

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog. 

— Denise Levertov

The Window

Your body is away from me
but there is a window open
from my heart to yours.

From this window, like the moon
I keep sending news secretly.

— Rumi

I’m Going Back to Minnesota Where Sadness Makes Sense

O California, don’t you know the sun is only a god

if you learn to starve for him? I’m bored with the ocean

I stood at the lip of it, dressed in down, praying for snow

I know, I’m strange, too much light makes me nervous

at least in this land where the trees always bear green.

I know something that doesn’t die can’t be beautiful.

Have you ever stood on a frozen lake, California?

The sun above you, the snow & stalled sea—a field of mirror

all demanding to be the sun too, everything around you

is light & it’s gorgeous & if you stay too long it will kill you

& it’s so sad, you know? You’re the only warm thing for miles

& the only thing that can’t shine.

— Denez Smith

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

— Mary Oliver

When People Move On Without You

there will be people
who move on without you,
and people you admired
that you can no longer look up to,
and there will also be
gaps in the trees
where the wind blows through
and reminds you:
no matter the betrayal
or the rejection,
there is still room in this life
to make
meaningful,
new connections.

and there is also
still room
to breathe,
letting your heart
soften into release,
finding that no matter what is changing
you are still free to pursue peace.

for there will be storm clouds
hovering the flower fields
where you were hoping
to watch the setting sun,
and there will be cities
you meant to visit
before the world
as you knew it
came undone,
and there will also be moments
when you remember
the small strip
of ocean shore
where the seafoam sang to you
that morning,
“there is more,
there is more.”

and in the end,
you will find
even when you were
carrying so much
on your shoulders,
you were not just getting older.
you were not just surviving.
you were a living, breathing soul
slowly redefining
what it meant
to be thriving.

and one day at a time,
you are finding the courage
to keep traveling through.

people move on,
everything changes,
and through it all,
you change, too.

you’ve had your fears,
you’ve had your losses,
and you’ve had to face
the raw reality of grief,
and you’ve also dared
to have this hope:
every day,
you are still becoming
who you were meant to be.

— Morgan Harper Nichols

All images except the cat on the couch via Unsplash; photo illustrations (and the cat on the couch) by me.