On the last weekend of August I attended the Grief and Growing weekend put on annually by the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center. It was amazing, profound, and yes, healing. Here's the poem I wrote in my head on the drive home from Santa Rosa. On the island of sad people a wave breaks forever on the soft stone of our hearts there is a grove of arms for each of us that sways gently in the wind of our sighs. We cry out and the crows continue their work of being crows. We cry out and the deep rooted forest stays rooted deep. In the crowns of the trees, ten thousand green-tipped twigs still reach quietly for the sun. We cry out and our cries become a flock of small wings circling the place where we stand weeping. This is the place where grief creeps out from between our ribs and shows its tear streaked, ravaged face, unbends its proud neck to dance before us in a passion of awkward, devastated grace so that we catch our breath at its unexpected beauty. We have left our numb courtesies at the gate, the weary fine, fine, I’m fine with which we meet the dogged insistence of others that we be well, our distracted pleasantries as we navigate the business of still living So that here, girdled by strong reefs our brief true smiles flash across the night like fallen stars shedding showers of light on the darkened land.
3 Comments
Yovani Flores
9/5/2011 05:37:45 am
Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece. Your words shook my heart.
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About Aurora
Aurora Levins Morales is a disabled and chronically ill, community supported writer, historian, artist and activist. It takes a village to keep her blogs coming. To become part of the village it takes, donate here. Never miss a post!
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