5 More Poems for Loss, Grief, Consolation
A post I wrote in September of 2018 titled, 10 Poems for Loss, Grief, Consolation has been consistently the top post here on Transactions with Beauty. It has always been popular, but in the last two years, as you can imagine, the stats on this post keep growing. In my intro to that post I said that I hope you had no need of the poems at present. But the thing is, we have almost all needed them, or at least, we have all experienced loss of some sort these past two years, we have grieved for not just our loved ones who have left us, but for so many things. So. Many. Things. We have needed consolation but I would wager that you have also consoled.
The second poem I included with my 2018 post was my own In Lieu of Flowers which can be found in my book The Flower Can Always Be Changing. (My publisher has copies if you need one). And that poem is everywhere — including on a list of poems about losing a loved one on Book Riot.
As of today’s date, the sobering news from CBC: “The World Health Organization is estimating that nearly 15 million people were killed either by the coronavirus or by its impact on overwhelmed health systems in the past two years, more than double the official death toll of six million.” It’s difficult to think in such big numbers, to feel. As the poet Wislawa Szymborska said in her poem “A Large Number,” “Four billion people on this earth, / but my imagination is still the same. / It’s bad with large numbers. / It’s still taken by particularity.” And many of us don’t need to use our imaginations, we know the particularities. We are familiar.
So today, I add 5 more poems for you to have at hand, poems to live with, to grieve through. I hope they are of some use.
The first is by Adam Zagajewski who died at the age of 75 in April of 2021.
1. That Day by Adam Zagajewski
That day, when word comes
that someone close has died, a friend, or someone
we didn’t know, but admired from a distance
–the first moment, the first hours: he or she is gone,
it seems certain, inescapable, maybe even
irrefutable, we trust (reluctantly) whoever tells us,
heartbroken, over the phone, or maybe some announcer
from a careless radio, but we can’t believe it,
nothing on earth could convince us,
since he still hasn’t died (for us), not at all,
he (she) no longer is, but hasn’t yet vanished
for good, just the opposite, he is, so it seems, at the strongest
point of his existence, he grows,
though he is no more, he still speaks,
though he’s gone mute, he still prevails,
though he’s lost, lost the battle–with what?
time? the body?–but no, it’s not true, he has triumphed,
he’s achieved completion, absolute completion,
he’s so complete, so great, so splendid, he no longer fits
inside life, he shatters life’s frail vessel,
he towers over the living, as if made
from a different substance, the strongest bronze,
but at the same time we begin to suspect,
we’re afraid, we guess, we know,
that silence approaches
and helpless grief
— from Asymmetry by Adam Zagajewski
Famous for the last line, this next poem is also famously unsentimental. However you read the last line, it’s certainly memorable.
2. An Arundel Tomb by Philip Larkin
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd—
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
3. Let there be new flowering by Lucille Clifton
let there be new flowering
in the fields let the fields
turn mellow for the men
let the men keep tender
through the time let the time
be wrested from the war
let the war be won
let love be
at the end
{source}
4. The Swan by Rainer Maria Rilke
This laboring of ours with all that remains undone,
as if still bound to it,
is like the lumbering gait of the swan.
And then our dying—releasing ourselves
from the very ground on which we stood—
is like the way he hesitantly lowers himself
into the water. It gently receives him,
and, gladly yielding, flows back beneath him,
as wave follows wave,
while he, now wholly serene and sure,
with regal composure,
allows himself to glide.
{source}
5. Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
Thank you for reading and may you be well.
A quick note to say that I’m starting something new. (I’ve thought about doing something like this before then backtracked, but I think now is the time). I’ve started a Patreon which you will be hearing more about in the weeks to follow but as a reader of Transactions with Beauty I wanted to give you the first sneak peek and “chance” to become a monthly patron. Yes, TwB will continue, but there will be a weekly Patreon post now in my Beauty School. In the meantime, do stay tuned to the frequency of beauty…..and thank you to all the many supporters of this space over the years…it’s not going away!
— Shawna
May 5, 2022
