an ode to hard things (poetic friday/saturday, week three)

Poetic Friday/Saturday means I must put different words to my thoughts - words carefully chosen, weeded out from their neighbors, words that sit in a strange order and meet each other in an unexpected rhythm. Poetry is the wondrous music of loving words. Won't you share your poetry too (I'd love to read it)?an ode to the hard things (by Hilary Sherratt)I love you:hearts I can’t understanddoors that lock and boltocean of time and separationwind shattering a window in a storm.It is winter,rain lashes at my face in early morning.My boots drip onto the new pavement.I carry youe questions in my wide eyes.Then I bless you: the hard things no one wishes for –you with your achesand bruises, with your wonderingand missingand cryingand forfeitingand defeat.You are the oyster shells of the world:I see your pearl.And one from a favorite poet of mine:

The Thing Is

by Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it evenwhen you have no stomach for itand everything you've held dearcrumbles like burnt paper in your hands,your throat filled with the silt of it.When grief sits with you, its tropical heatthickening the air, heavy as watermore fit for gills than lungs;when grief weights you like your own fleshonly more of it, an obesity of grief,you think, How can a body withstand this?Then you hold life like a facebetween your palms, a plain face,no charming smile, no violet eyes,and you say, yes, I will take youI will love you, again.

Love, hilary