(After George Ella Lyon) I am from star jasmine,from slingshots and forbidden books. I am from foaming water, pulling me under.(white, churningtasting like salt.) I am from the black walnut,the wild blueberry bush,whose roots dug tenaciously into the Michigan soil,resurfacing every summer, as I did. I am from poviticas and freckles,from Ruth, Frances, and Lavina.…
Read More
The dog grows old, the fledgling you rescued dies anyways,the water dries up, the crops (the dreams) you planted turn to dust. It was not supposed to be this way. (This breaks my heart.)Or maybe this is exactly how it was supposed to be.(And this breaks my heart even more.) And yet; The sun rises –again,again,again,even though,…
Read More
There is so much space between those two words – she died – how is it that the entire universe can be contained within that slip of space?
Read More
Three letters with the power to destroy, to annihilate, to burn everything down. Too These three letters can throw the scale off balance, topple the house of cards, bring the whole damn thing down. You shake your head; I see you disagree with me. Bear with me, stay with me for a moment. Let me…
Read More
I wish for the impossible, for the faraway lifetime that ended years ago. I wish that the earth, soft with winter rain, would feel your feet — wide and solid — walk again through our garden. And that you would gather winter squash as you did before. I wish for one more brightly-lit dinner around…
Read More
Grief is a wilderness — sometimes I think I can see where I am supposed to go, but most of the time I can’t quite make out where the path is or how this will all settle down to something I can hold in my hands and say — ‘There. There is my loss and…
Read More
It’s November already. Almost one year since my youngest daughter died by suicide during her first semester away at college. Even as I write those words, I have to pause and let them wash over me as though they are new words, as if this is a new grief. I don’t think these words will…
Read More
It was an early morning, and a couple of running friends and I set off for an easy run along our local trail. I started thinking about my daughter, who died suddenly last year, and about life, grief, and how things often don’t end up the way we expect them to. As my hips and…
Read More
November is the month of marigold petals, pungent and bold, of smoke, and bone-white daughter-grief. It is the month when the leaves bleed red. Where the sun — bleeding through the thick, suffocating smoke — casts a sickly yellow hue on all our faces. Where the words that you are dead bleed through my eyes…
Read More
I think some people are born broken. There’s something about the way the pieces of their soul clatter and shift discordantly inside them from the day they arrive on this earth. Yes, I know there are glorious stories about broken people who were able to rise above the blackness to fit the pieces together, who…
Read More