The Widow's Leaving

 

. . . the living and the dead

Young and old, gather where they are brought

            Robert Pinsky, “The Garden”

 

 

  

After he died and her long deciding of

What to keep and the leaving to others

Of all that grief no longer asked of her,

Nothing to say they had ever been there

But stone steps to the untended garden.

 

The forecast is high wind and heavy rain,

The storm already dark in the distance,

And I go out to save the last hydrangeas

Left in my keeping, heavy on their stems 

And leaning into the fading light, breaking

 

Them off and carrying them in to vases,

glasses, bowls and jars, filling each and

Each room with white and pink and blue

Blossoms looking out on rain and wind,

Dying now the slower death of our care.





Poetry by countryfog
Read 813 times
Written on 2015-07-23 at 17:16

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Jamsbo Rockda The PoetBay support member heart!
Extremely well written. Like a well tended garden. But sad.
2015-07-28


Peter J. Kautsky
reading this poem I was moved to read more of your poetry. This was very moving.
2015-07-26


Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
A very well-written, well-conceived poem.
2015-07-24



A piece of beautiful melancholy, my friend :-)
The scene is set very poignantly through recollections of grief and the image of the untended garden with its stone steps, which are covered in moss in my mind. I like the weather observations that begin the second verse, contributing tension in the burgeoning storm. As always, your talent for description is in evidence, such that we were able to observe the garden activity and the arrangement of hydrangeas in the house. It's a sad ending, but there is solace in considering such care. All at BirdBrains applaud gently together.
2015-07-24


Ivan R
Amazing. This is true poetry, the walking around the subject, the feeling of it pointed out but in delicate ways, the way of looking at something, take it down and rebuild it with great honesty, and true emotions ... this poem is really It.
Love it.
2015-07-24


josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
The process of grieving; the delaying of the eventual loss. The loving that you so deftly describe in the last stanza is metaphorical of the wake we all must endure to take our leave slowly with healing. So well written and so astutely defined.
2015-07-23