What I absolutely adore about poetry, is that no matter badly I am feeling (or feelings of joy, despair, elation, awe...), there is someone out there who has felt the exact same way. I know this because I have read their words, somewhere along the way, on a page or spoken from the podium of a packed auditorium. Poems. Poems are what get me through. Time and time again, since as far back as I can remember. This is a new favorite.
The Thing Is
by Ellen Bass
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
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