Autumn
And the leaves give up,
let chlorophyll leak away,
go back to their true colors.
Then wind strips them
from twig and branch,
though some hang on
with brittle stems.
The way I cannot let
you go: your name
on my checks, your message
on the answering machine.
Your ring on my finger.
Your name, my name.
The Second Year
You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.
— Anne Lamott
The most beautiful weather in weeks, sky of heartbreak blue, leaves slowly
turning gold in the sun. But what I’m longing for is steady rain, hanging
clouds, air you can swim in: the weather of grief. It’s hard to hold on to
sadness in an autumn this translucent, sunlight this bright, chrysanthemums
humming with bees. It’s been two years; I didn’t think I would survive.
But now I’m lifting my body, aging and clumsy though it is, in my two thin arms,
and somehow, I’m learning again how to dance.
–
Barbara Crooker is the author of nine books of poetry; Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series) is her latest. Her work has appeared in many anthologies, including Commonwealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, The Poetry of Presence, and Healing the Divide: Poems of Kinship and Compassion.