Thursday, May 20, 2010

Ashes

This (HT to Contemplative Photography) is for Karen, who is focused on a sad anniversary this week-end.  Oddly or, I suppose not, in the midst of final assignments and packing boxes and the graduation dilemma, I, too, have been thinking about ashes all day, every day.

Love to you, Karen.



Crying out loud and weeping
are great resources.

A nursing mother, all she does

is wait to hear her child.


Just a little beginning-whimper

and she's there.


Cry out.

Do not be stolid and silent with your pain.

Lament,

and let the milk of loving

flow into you.


The hard rain and the wind

are ways the cloud has

to take care of us.


-- Rumi,
A Year with Rumi (May 5) 

5 comments:

  1. This has been a difficult morning -- floodgates opened. I am home with my mother who is not seeming to get better... thank you...

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  2. A poem that just keeps sinking deeper into the heart. I sent it on to two nieces whose hearts have also been aching.

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  3. Dear Beautiful Robin,
    Thank you for that poem and dedication. My heart is so full of grief this week, it just pours out at the slightest trigger. I miss him so much and I want him back, and am frustrated that it just can't be. Your poem reminded me of a woman on Maui, who when her grown son died of cancer, reported that her milk "let down"--as in breastfeeding. That has stuck with me, because the bond of mother and child is so intense from carrying them in our bodies--we feel the loss in our bodies. I just ached the first year, and now this week, my chest cavity feels all full of boulders again. It hurts and I miss him and that's all there is to it.
    Thanks so much for your love, support, friendship, encouragement and wisdom this past year. You have meant so much to me. I pray for peace, comfort and success as you wrap up school this week.
    Much love,
    Karen

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  4. Thank you for this. I needed it, too. XOXO

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