Beyond Sorrow

When sorrow falls upon you, there is no choice and your journey begins. Pain entangles memory. How will you carry on?

Our son passed away at the age of twenty-four, and I didn’t know how to continue. These poems are steps toward a different equilibrium, often hopeless, sometimes edging near joy. During the twelve years of journey, three other loved ones—my father, my mother, and a dear friend R.—also left us lost and grieving.

Yet there are comforts and supports along our zigzag paths. I found actions and practices to try, rituals to create or remember, and odd sorts of happenings to consider, and I didn’t look to seances or spiritual mediums.

It is impossible to compare depth or situations of loss. You may not be able to sit with your loved one at the end, or to gather and mourn. Or they may have passed some time ago. But if these poems help you find any relief or calm or approach to negotiate the anguish of the passage, then my work is complete.

Below is a poem from "Blown into Now."

I Want You

How Alex Spoke to Wild Earth

when midnight cold
lies on the shoulder of your land
and I can’t sleep.
Trees drop snow on my tongue.
All is black.

when the break of dawn
sears the rim of sky.
Minarets of chimney rock
toss shadow down,
down into nothing.

when my cheek and sweat cool
against your marbled cliff.
A band of quartz
runs beneath my body,
and colors the scarp and jag.

when I kneel in beating sun
and trail sand.
There is no sound.
There is no scent
but mint and pennyroyal.

when light breaks water
on a ruffle of wind.
Below, in green mud,
a lattice flickers,
lit like cut glass.

when humans call to me
with stories and marvels,
and I must leave.
But I’ll find you
in quiet or wild.

I want you most
when my days end,
and those who love me
bring my bone dust back.
They throw me from a mountaintop
beneath a covey of stars,
and from there, we’ll travel on.

Copyright © 2022 by Mylo Schaaf

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