Tag Archives: pearl

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Beading memory

Both I and my sister have done some beading.

She gave me this necklace one of the last three times I saw her. She was at home with breast cancer and referred to hospice. I flew down to visit three times in the last three months. I was expecting it before then but she was very very strong and fought it all the way to the end.

We were both born in March, so this has amethysts. She liked silver more than gold and we both liked the irregularly shaped pearls. I am not sure what the dark round beads are. They could be bloodstones, which were the March birthstone before amethyst took over. I like the clasp in the front and that it is not symmetric. My sister died in 2012 and of course I still miss her.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: beading.

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release

poem: release

I can’t do it, Beloved

or no
I don’t know how, Beloved

release old grief, I am told

I am to have the intention daily
to release old grief

it sits in my throat
aching lump, knot, old
I don’t know how old
is it from before birth
I haven’t looked up whether antibodies
to tuberculosis
cross the placenta
attacking

Kell kills
that is one of the antibodies
that can kill a fetus

I have the grief
a tiger by the tail

at first I was afraid
that releasing it would lose
some core part of myself
that the me I have built
is the nacre, a pearl
wrapped around a core of grief

but Beloved
I try to listen
I try so hard to listen
to have faith
why pay for help
without attempting to follow
the ideas
unless they are so clearly wrong

conversation
with myself
the past the woman the girl the child the fetus
let the grief go
gently

Beloved
maybe I am not gentle enough
full speed ahead
maybe I need to cradle the grief more
rock it, comfort it, thank it
grief, you protected me so much
from the patterns in the family

Beloved
maybe I need to thank the grief
before I let it go

9/21/17

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Lessons in letting go

It interests me
this letting go

done at the height of vulnerability
or perhaps these are depths

why would a friend walk away
when I cry

when I have lost a financial battle

and in the past
the weekend my sister died

friends come
friends go

do not take it to heart
when they go

I am not lying to myself
that this person loved me

and left when I was in the blue deeps
left me additionally shattered by going

they tell themselves and others
too emotional too dark too dramatic

and I am startled out of my grief
to more grief loss

death is final
but I can talk to the dead

when the living have left
there is a gaping wound

Beloved comforts me
and it is not about me

they tell themselves and others
but they are running from their own

depths, grief, emotion, darkness
they cannot stand by me in darkness

I forgive again
and I am content

alone with the Beloved
in the depths

and there is such beauty here
if my friends were still friends

I could show them the pearls
in these deeps