April is coming to a close. I have just a few more classes of the semester and then I am facing the summer — with lots of projects and tasks I should complete. Yet, in light of the events that have happened this past month, I’m finding it hard to get excited about the months ahead. It’s funny — but everyone thinks that if you are a writer, then of course, writing about your grief helps you find some relief and closure. But I’ve always had trouble writing about personal loss — at least right away.
So for now, I’m wrapping up the semester, and I do have a “To Do” list that NEEDS to get done, no matter what. I also have a lawn that needs to be mowed (yes, the neighbors with their rumbling lawnmowers make me feel guilty). I have boxes of book left over from spring cleaning that need to be donated. I have laundry. I have dusty window blinds. I have dishes in the sink. I have one last lesson that needs work.
The business of living must continue.
The Scrapper Poet 
Sandy Longhorn Said:
on April 28, 2013 at 4:10 pm
In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
kweyant Said:
on April 28, 2013 at 10:02 pm
Thanks Sandy, for sharing this poem. It is a perfect work in time of grief.
Kathleen Kirk Said:
on April 30, 2013 at 12:12 am
Love.