Siegfried Sassoon: Grandeur of Ghosts
How can they use such names and be not humble?
I have sat silent; angry at what they uttered.
Emily Dickinson: Grief is a Mouse
Grief is a Thief—quick startled—
Pricks His Ear—report to hear
Of that Vast Dark—
That swept His Being—back—
Sandy Solomon: Widow
An amputated leg, they say, tingles,
an ear long deaf still jangles the brain:
the body asserts the integrity of its parts…
Leslie McGrath: Baby Hippos, the Rain & Other People’s Pain
There are worse ways to waste time
than watching videos of baby hippos…
Video: Lunch Time
A 16-year-old Iranian girl has been notified by the local morgue to identify her mother’s body. Over the course of the next 15 minutes, this painful task proves to be more difficult than we could have ever imagined in Alireza Ghasemi’s engrossing and humanist portrait “Lunch Time.”
Danusha Laméris: The Cat
After my brother died, his wife was sure he was living
inside their cat, Rocky. He’s in there, she’d say, staring into
those blank, yellow eyes. Isma’il? Isma’il? Can you hear me?
Jamie Lombardi: Marcus Aurelius helped me survive grief and rebuild my life
No matter how terrible what happened was, it is still our choice whether to understand our story as one of crippling defeat or a miraculous victory against the odds – even if all we do is get back up and learn to stand again.
Chris Moran: After Reading Akhmatova
What can I name my grief, again, today?
A nickel frozen in the sidewalk?
A tumbling paper bag?
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Stillbirth
I sometimes go months without remembering you.
Some griefs bless us that way, not asking much space.
Judith Sanders: The Farewell
“Picture a staircase,”
the hypnotist said.
“At the top, a door
will open
onto a landscape.”
Deborah Bogen: Season of Light — and of Darkness
If you happen to meet someone for whom the season of light is a reminder of a dark time, of a sorrow or a loneliness, take a moment and sit with them, let them be that dark. Believe in their sorrow as you believe also in joy. Believe in them.
Michael Simms: Antbed
You may remember my father
died when I was eight
my mother closed up
the house and we went to stay
with my grandmother for a few months
Allegra Harpootlian: Why I Weep While I Work
A majority of my day is spent bearing witness to the pain, fear, and terror that America’s actions have been causing across the Greater Middle East and North Africa.
Edna St Vincent Millay: Ashes of Life
Love has gone and left me, — and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse
