Category Archives: grief

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Falling

I was asked to write a poem from the perspective of the angels in my dream.

Falling

We are stars
We are born
We are made to burn
We flame
We explode or burn out
We are made to die

We are angels
We are made to fall
We all fall
We are white falling in black space
Or black falling in white space
If you prefer
It doesn’t matter
It is the contrast that is important
There is no light without dark

We are angels
We are made to fall
We all fall

Do you fear
your fear?
your anger?
your grief?
falling?
death?

We fall for you

If you reject
your fear
your anger
your grief
falling
death

We will fall for you
We accept falling

All must fall

If you accept
your fear
your anger
your grief
falling
death

We will fall with you

You will fall with us

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My mom loved me

My mom loved me

It’s herself she didn’t love
She didn’t love her anger
She didn’t love her fear
She didn’t love her sorrow
She didn’t love her shadows

She packed all her troubles in her saddlebags
and rode forth singing.

When I was angry
she felt her anger
When I was scared
she felt her fear
When I was sad
she felt her sorrow
When I felt my shadows
she felt hers
I hid my shadows

I hid my shadows for many years
and then my saddlebags were full
They called me

I dove in the sea
I rescued my anger
I rescued my fear
I rescued my sorrow
I rescued my shadows

At first I couldn’t love them
My mom didn’t; how could I?

But I loved my mom
I loved all of her
Her anger
Her fear
Her sorrow
Her shadows
Her singing and courage

I thought if I could love her shadows
I could love my own

It was hard
It took months
I looked in the mirror at my own face
And slowly I was able to have
Compassion for myself

I am sad that my mom is not
where I can touch her warmth
and tell her I love all of her
I tell her anyway

I’m finding many things as I surface from my dive
Sometimes I feel the presence of angels
I was looking for something else
I found a valentine
that she made me
No date
Many hearts cut out and glued
to red paper

I am so surprised

My mom loves me
shadows and all
now and  forever.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child Sweet Honey in the Rock

I took the photo of my mother working at the etching press while I was in college.
This was previously posted on everything2.com in 7/2014 and written before that.

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unbearable

each time
I think
I can’t bear it

it hurts too much

you are hitting me when I am down

but then I know
that I have come too close

icarus to the sun

you melt the wax from my wings
impassive
as I fall
from the sky

you forget
I forget
that the sea is my true element

not the air

I fall into the sea

I am safe
no wings
no air
no burning sun
just the depths
my tail is back
and the painful split is healed

I swim
down to the depths

I remember
that you torch me
because it is unbearable
to be loved

you stand on shore
apollo
bright and beautiful

I wonder if you will call me forth
from the froth

I wonder if I will come
forth

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Between trapezes

Two and a half years
Between trapezes

Letting go is hard
Enough
But then to hang
Wait for the next
On Faith
When you can’t see your way
After a while you aren’t
Flying through the air
But falling

Falling
And screaming inside

Free fall
For hours
Days weeks years

In the company of angels
Letting go
Calls the angels
I dream of angels
Falling in a black void

And after a while
You don’t want to fall anymore
And you understand
Those who end it
It takes great strength
To hold on to the idea
That it will end.

Two and a half years
And suddenly my hands are solid
Not falling
Swinging

Joy wells up
My mind is freed
From the hard work
Of falling and screaming
And I am swinging in the air
Safe

Color is back
Sensation
Sound
Music
Taste
Food melts in my mouth

Who would not be manic?

previously published on everything2.com in 2010, written in mid-2000s.

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Demon Chainers

And you thought the hard work was over
Finding your demons
Facing them
Adopting them
Comforting them
Learning to love the parts that no one loved
That you hid as a child
Mothering your own unloved self
Fathering the parts he couldn’t love
And to surface knowing that you are a child of God
And lovable
Only to be attacked
With a concerted effort
To return you to what you were before

Don’t be frightened enough to give up
You are right
You are still a child of God
Lovable
In your wholeness
Talents and faults

Those who attack
Feel their demons
Clamoring at them
Clawing
When you learned to love your demons
Theirs want to be loved too
So badly
But their keepers are frightened
They are pressing their demons back into the depths
Desperate
Attack you for you have made them feel their sorrows
All unaware

Seek those who have also
Dealt with their demons
And they will welcome you
You are not crazy
To feel the euphoria
Of surfacing
But do not get carried away
And be kind to the demon chainers
Remember where you were before.

8/16/05

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Trust in the dark

Writing201’s prompt today is trust. This article in the NY Times about how there is no right way to grieve moves me: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/getting-grief-right/?_r=0

Trust in the dark

Oh Beloved
   Help me to trust in the dark
      Help me to take each step
         Down into grief
            As needed
Oh Beloved
   Help me walk in the caverns of despair
      Each step slow
         As if I walk through molasses
            The air is thickened
               My chest hurts
Oh Beloved
   Help me to trust you
      That just as I descend into grief
         That just as I move through despair
            That the steps will someday lead up again
               That I will rise and spring will come
Oh Beloved
   Help me to thank you
      For tears and joy
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You can’t make someone love you 

You can't make someone love you


How can we fall out of love?

I mean it. If we love someone, how can we fall out of 
love?

Falling in love, according to my understanding of the 
Jungian ideas, is projecting some of your best aspects 
on the other person. You see them in a haze of love, of 
perfection. I've seen something to the effect that 
falling in love is the only time that psychosis is not 
treated. That is, when you are in love, you are psychotic.
You are crazy. You are nuts.

I, then, am currently nuts.

One of the things that I admire most about my ex-husband 
is that he is friends with all of his ex-girlfriends. And 
his ex-wife, that is, me. When we were first married, he 
told me about the ex-girlfriends. He was in contact with 
them, by phone or email. I was ok with it and admired it. 
We met dancing, jitterbug, east coast swing dancing. We 
would go to the live dances in Cabin John, Maryland. We 
would dance two dances with each other, say bye, and race 
off to dance with everyone else. Five hundred people would 
show up, for an hour lesson and three hours of live band. 
In the summer the guys would bring 4 t-shirts and change 
them as they were soaked. There was no alcohol in the park. 
No air conditioning. We didn't clap for the bands at all 
because we were too busy trying to find the next partner to 
dance with. You could signal next dance, one or two fingers. 
Not past two, because no one could remember.....

Anyhow, jealousy seemed silly. My ex-husband transformed 
each of those relationships with his ex-girlfriends from 
lover and partner into something else.

I think this is the right thing to do. If it is our best 
aspects projected on the person that we are in love with, 
then perhaps it is our own worst aspects that we project 
when we "fall out of love". We hate the person. They have 
broken our hearts. They have been cruel.

But have they? They were not required to be in love with 
us. Just because we love them does not mean that they have 
to love us back. Or really, they do not have to love us 
"that way". You can't make someone love you.

I want to be like my ex-husband. I want to continue to 
love the person that I love. As a small town doctor, I have
taken care of both halves of a divorcing couple. My brain 
managed to keep them entirely separate and not connect them 
until the day when I saw both. Even then, I had trouble 
believing that they were talking about each other: because 
what they said had almost nothing to do with what the other 
person was saying or doing. I said to my nurse, "Are they 
really talking about each other? Or is it at last name 
coincidence?"

She said, "Took you long enough to get it."

If I am rejected, I want to keep loving the person. Perhaps 
I too will fall out of loving them "that way". But if it is 
aspects of myself that I see in them and love, why would I 
turn to hate? I don't want to project the ugly parts of myself 
on them.

I'll save the ugly parts to project on the greedy corporations. 
Now, I am perfectly content and happy to hate them.......