{"id":30,"date":"2014-05-13T22:46:09","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T22:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/?page_id=30"},"modified":"2020-02-14T08:09:18","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T14:09:18","slug":"grief","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/grief\/","title":{"rendered":"Grief Quotes & Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Some of the following poems and quotes that deal with grief are hopeful, some are grim, dark, and sad. Sometimes comfort can come through reading others\u2019 words of hope when you\u2019re struggling to find your own; sometimes relief is found by feeling seen through words written by someone who knows just how deep your sorrow lies. A couple of the poems are repeated from the general poetry page because though they apply to life in general, when they\u2019re read through the eyes of grief they have a particularly deep meaning. I hope that you might find some holding in these words:<\/h4>\n

Give sorrow words;
\nthe grief that does not speak;
\nwhispers the o\u2019er-fraught heart
\nand bids it break.
\n\u2014 William Shakespeare, Macbeth<\/em><\/p>\n

The Well of Grief<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those who will not slip beneath
\nthe still surface on the well of grief
\nturning downward through its black water
\nto the place we cannot breathe
\nwill never know the source from which we drink,
\nthe secret water, cold and clear,
\nnor find in the darkness glimmering
\nthe small round coins
\nthrown by those who wished for something else.<\/p>\n

\u2014 David Whyte, in Where Many Rivers Meet<\/em><\/p>\n

Cry Out in Your Weakness<\/strong><\/p>\n

Where lowland is,
\nthat\u2019s where water goes. All medicine wants
\nis pain to cure. . . .
\nTear the binding from around the foot
\nof your soul, and let it race around the track
\nin front of the crowd. . . .
\nGive your weakness
\nto one who helps.
\nCrying out loud and weeping are great resources.
\nA nursing mother, all she does
\nis wait to hear her child.
\nJust a little beginning-whimper,
\nand she\u2019s there.
\nGod created the child, that is, your wanting,
\nso that it might cry out, so that milk might come.
\nCry out! Don\u2019t be stolid and silent
\nwith your pain. Lament! And let the milk
\nof loving flow into you.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Rumi, in The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks<\/em><\/p>\n

Even in our sleep
\nPain which cannot forget
\nFalls drop by drop upon the heart
\nUntil, in our own despair,
\nAgainst our will,
\nComes wisdom
\nThrough the awful grace of God.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aeschylus<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes in life, our spirits are nearly gone . . .
\nsometimes we feel so crushed and broken and
\noverwhelmed . . .
\nthat we do not even see where we are going.
\nWe are just out there walking to keep the
\nheart beating . . .
\nand the circulation moving.
\nbut . . . if that is all we can do . . .
\nand we are doing it . . .
\nthat is still being faithful . . . not quitting . . .
\ngiving it our best.<\/p>\n

\u2014 ann kiemel<\/em><\/p>\n

Most people, though, manage to make their way through the painful stages of grief and eventually regain their emotional balance. What they need desperately are caring friends and relatives who allow them to grieve in their own way, at their own pace and who, above all, will not insist that they act like their \u201cold selves.\u201d For no one who has suffered a terrible loss will ever be her old self again. She may be a different self or even a better self, but she will never regain the identity that was untouched by grief.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Susan Jacoby<\/em><\/p>\n

In the dark immensity of night
\nI stood upon a hill and watched the light
\nOf a star,
\nSoundless and beautiful and far.
\nA scientist standing there with me
\nSaid, \u201cIt is not the star you see,
\nBut a glow
\nThat left the star light years ago.\u201d
\nPeople are like stars in a timeless sky;
\nThe light of a good person\u2019s life shines high,
\nGolden and splendid
\nLong after his brief earth years are ended.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Grace V. Watkins<\/em><\/p>\n

Sorrow<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
\nBeats upon my heart.
\nPeople twist and scream in pain, \u2014
\nDawn will find them still again;
\nThis has neither wax nor wane,
\nNeither stop nor start.
\nPeople dress and go to town;
\nI sit in my chair.
\nAll my thoughts are slow and brown:
\nStanding up or sitting down
\nLittle matters, or what gown
\nOr what shoes I wear.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Edna St. Vincent Millay<\/em><\/p>\n

Birdwings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your grief for what you\u2019ve lost lifts a mirror
\nup to where you\u2019re bravely working.
\nExpecting the worst, you look, you look, and instead,
\nhere’s the joyful face you\u2019ve been wanting to see.
\nYour hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
\nIf it were always a fist or always stretched open,
\nyou would be paralyzed.
\nYour deepest presence is in every small contracting
\nand expanding,
\nthe two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
\nas birdwings.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Rumi, in The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks<\/em><\/p>\n

Not to Make Loss Beautiful<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not to make loss beautiful,
\nBut to make loss the place
\nWhere beauty starts. Where
\nthe heart understands
\nFor the first time
\nThe nature of its journey.<\/p>\n

Love, yes. The body
\nof the beloved as the gift
\nBestowed. But only
\nTemporarily. Given freely,
\nBut now to be earned.<\/p>\n

Given without thought,
\nAnd now loss
\nHas made us thoughtful.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Gregory Orr, in Concerning The Book That Is the Body Of The Beloved<\/em><\/p>\n

Sweet Darkness<\/strong><\/p>\n

When your eyes are tired
\nthe world is tired also.
\nWhen your vision has gone
\nno part of the world can find you.
\nTime to go into the dark
\nwhere the night has eyes
\nto recognize its own.
\nThere you can be sure
\nyou are not beyond love.
\nThe dark will be your womb
\ntonight.
\nThe night will give you a horizon
\nfurther than you can see.
\nYou must learn one thing.
\nThe world was made to be free in.
\nGive up all the other worlds
\nexcept the one to which you belong.<\/p>\n

\u2014 David Whyte, in The House of Belonging<\/em><\/p>\n

Borrowed Hope<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lend me your hope for awhile,
\nI seem to have mislaid mine.
\nLost and hopeless feelings accompany me daily.
\nPain and confusion are my companions.
\nI know not where to turn.
\nLooking ahead to the future times
\nDoes not bring forth images of renewed hope.
\nI see mirthless times, pain-filled days, and more tragedy.
\nLend me your hope for awhile,
\nI seem to have mislaid mine.
\nHold my hand and hug me,
\nListen to all my ramblings.
\nI need to unleash the pain and let it tumble out.
\nRecovery seems so far and distant,
\nThe road to healing, a long and lonely one.
\nStand by me. Offer me your presence,
\nYour ears and your love.
\nAcknowledge my pain, it is so real and ever present.
\nI am overwhelmed with sad and conflicting thoughts.
\nLend me your hope for awhile.
\nA time will come when I will heal,
\nAnd I will end my renewed hope to others.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Eloise Cole<\/em><\/p>\n

The Cure<\/strong><\/p>\n

We think we get over things.
\nWe don\u2019t get over things.
\nOr say, we get over the measles
\nbut not a broken heart.
\nWe need to make that distinction.
\nThe things that become part of our experience
\nNever become less a part of our experience.
\nHow can I say it?
\nThe way to get over a life is to die,
\nShort of that, you move with it,
\nlet the pain be pain,
\nnot in the hope that it will vanish
\nbut in the faith that it will fit in,
\nfind its place in the shape of things,
\nand be then not any less pain
\nbut true to form.
\nBecause anything natural has an
\ninherent shape and will flow towards it.
\nAnd a life is as natural as a leaf.
\nThat\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for:
\nnot the end of a thing
\nbut the shape of it.
\nWisdom is seeing the shape of your life without
\nobliterating, getting over, a
\nsingle instant of it.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Albert Huffstickler, from \u201cWanda\u201d Walking Wounded<\/em><\/p>\n

Ashes of Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
\nEat I must, and sleep I will,\u2014and would that night were
\nhere!
\nBut ah!\u2014to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
\nWould that it were day again!\u2014with twilight near!
\nLove has gone and left me and I don\u2019t know what to do;
\nThis or that or what you will is all the same to me;
\nBut all the things that I begin I leave before I\u2019m through,\u2014
\nThere\u2019s little use in anything as far as I can see.
\nLove has gone and left me,\u2014and the neighbors knock and
\nborrow,
\nAnd life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,\u2014
\nAnd to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
\nThere\u2019s this little street and this little house.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Edna St. Vincent Millay<\/em><\/p>\n

We do not recover from the death of a loved one. In fact, we never recover from that death in the same way we recover from an illness or broken limb. It will always be a part of us\u2014always\u2014and to suggest otherwise is unrealistically and harshly to imply that we somehow \u201cget over\u201d the feelings about the event or stop experiencing painful reminiscences of the loved one or the death.
\nA much more accurate metaphor is represented in the old Carole King song \u201cTapestry.\u201d
\nMy life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
\nAn everlasting vision of the everchanging view
\nA wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
\nA tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.
\nIn fact our lives are \u201ctapestries,\u201d and the death of a loved one is a ripping, gaping, bleeding hole in the very midst of that tapestry of our life. How, then, is the tapestry rewoven? It does not, with the mere passage of time, magically pull itself back together. Rather, it is rewoven only with the initiative, energy, and strength of the survivor reaching in and grasping the torn ends of threads, painfully pulling them back and tying them together. And it is rewoven only with those persons around the survivor cutting threads from their own tapestries and bringing them to the survivor, with love and support and caring and tears and strength, helping to further tie the threads and fill in the gaping hole.
\nSo, eventually, the tapestry is rewoven. But that \u201cglitch\u201d is always there, the roughness of that reweaving is, and always will be, apparent. In fact it may be twenty years from now, as the survivor reviews the tapestry of his or her life, or is in a particular setting, or hears a song on the radio, or remembers a special day of the month, that the rewoven seam is seen and felt again, and the survivor remembers and cries, or feels sad, or is touched by the love and caring expressed by those whose threads are apparent there\u2014and that is perfectly normal. We do not recover from a death, but when we allow others to help, we can reweave our tapestry.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Charles Meyer, in Surviving Death<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.
\n\u2014 Joseph Campbell<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>

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Some of the following poems and quotes that deal with grief are hopeful, some are grim, dark, and sad. Sometimes comfort can come through reading others\u2019 words of hope when you\u2019re struggling to find your own; sometimes relief is found by feeling seen through words written by someone who knows just how deep your sorrow lies. A couple of the poems are repeated from the general poetry page because though they apply to life in general, when they\u2019re read through the eyes of grief they have a particularly deep meaning. I hope that you might find some holding in these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":903,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30\/revisions\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}