GOOD MOURNING

A Way with Words To Deal with Longing and Loss

The Three Fates Spinning, Weaving, and Cutting Light for The StarChild

GOOD MOURNING

A Way with Words to Deal with Longing and Loss

Sometimes writing is a good way to express emotions during a period of mourning, whether it is the loss of a lover, a spouse, a relative, a child, or a pet.

All of us experience loss at some time, whether it is a physical loss or a spiritual loss.  All loss affects the emotions.  I have found throughout my life that the gift of words can express everything the soul or heart is going through.  I have been lucky that words come easy in writing to me and that I can create poetry through the sheer love that the emotion has emoted. 

One of the first emotions after loss is a ‘numbing’, the curling up in a cocoon that can last for some time.  This seems to me to be a ‘barrier’ and a safety net.  After emerging from that comes the ‘drop’.  This is part of the ‘survival’ guilt and the fact that no matter how much we may feel protective to shield someone, karma kicks in from some other source and life is changed. 

The grief comes in layers over a period of time, until we have acceptance of a sort.  An Irish minister or priest wisely told me not to make any rash or sudden decisions after my husband left the body, to give myself time to emerge.  He said that there may be sudden bouts of sadness triggered by small events in the future, or memories that are brought to the fore for no particular reason. 

Brian and Robin at The Hollywood Bowl

Robin absolutely loved the genius of Brian Wilson and his brothers, but felt particularly inspired by Brian, who inducted the Bee Gees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Robin and Brian both performed at The Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame.  Later, after we sadly lost Robin, The Beach Boys were performing in London, and I was invited to the concert and to meet with Brian backstage.   He gave me a huge hug and told me the world had lost a great voice and how he felt sad when he heard of Robin’s death, and what great love and respect he had for the Bee Gees music.  Of course, this respect was mutual.

This was the first concert I had attended afterwards, and I knew what that priest meant.  I was hurled, by the sound of adulation around me, into remembering what it felt like when I went to the brothers’ concerts, the jubilation and the music, the happiness of the crowd.  I had tears suddenly pouring, realising the finality of it all, yet I felt so close to Robin in the remembrance, and another emotion arose as if I were listening to Brian for him.  It was an extraordinary feeling.  I cherished it, hoping it was true. 

Other moments at home would catch me unawares.  Robin loved cups of tea, and it took some time, before I stopped taking two cups out of the cupboard to make tea for us.

Then there is an anger that follows and questions of why and how and what happened?  This was mastered through walks and quiet moments in meditation, talks with R-J, or meetings with friends, relatives, my sister, brother, my cousin.  Family is so important.  Caitlin helped me a lot.  My childhood friend Heather helped.  The fans were mourning too.  Robin’s other children were going through it.  Barry had lost his brothers and said he felt like an orphan.  I could only imagine what he felt.   A strange sad, unforgettable and strengthening number of years for all of us.    

Writing was the final stage, if there is ever a final stage!  Suddenly poetry was a gift of expression, something I had been writing since childhood.  My mother had an incredible memory for poetry, something she had had to do at school, and she could recite reams of Tennyson’s poems or Wordsworth.  (I found this out later).  She would make up little stories for us as children, and even though she did not write poetry herself, her way of thinking and speaking I found very poetic. She had wonderful expressions, wrote great letters when I was away from home, sometimes including a recipe or two: a cupful of this, a handful of that, a spoon or a pinch of this, never any measurement in numbers.  Somehow, I remembered.  These recipes came in very handy during our forced period of isolation during Covid.  We had Irish soda bread with raisins, and buttermilk scones galore, wheaten bread, treacle bread and oat crunchies, no yeast used in any of them.

Writing letters, writing thoughts down, and even writing a diary occasionally to Robin, was cathartic.

These are some other poems I have written in my life about loss, and moments of heartbreak or remembrance:

I SUPPOSE

I suppose after a while, one runs out of things to say, and poetry dies away just as easily as it came to life once upon a time.

I suppose life moves on and then one day one awakens realizing that the face one held so dear is nowhere near.

I suppose that it is then no longer feasible to expect a reasonable response that exceeds more than just one line.

I suppose the wish to remember every precious feature falls from contemplation into concentration finally to erase the fear.

I suppose love is then a memory effortlessly swept away to the corners of the mind and there it's made to stay.

And I suppose that time will alter time itself and suddenly the heart that swells with love no longer dwells in pain.

I suppose that life takes over with the beginning of a smile that is beyond the shedding of the last tear.

I wish, I wish, I wish I could remember what comes next, but I suppose when the time is right I will again.

THE FLAME

 The flame that you light in the shrine of my soul burns fiercely forever, an eternal fire that will not diminish, nor will it die.

Like the sigh of the poet’s harp, I whisper your name to the four winds with love in my song that will never lie.

 In the rivers of life, I will always find you and claim you when our awakening hearts beat high.

In the spells of language, we will breathe the gentle strains of love’s lost cries and not even the dusk and dawn of births and deaths will part us or pass us by.

No tears of loss or sorrow will moisten your eyes or fall upon you, and only happiness and remembrance of our sacred destiny will, time and again, draw us nigh.

JUDGEMENT

Tighten the reins upon me to reel me to a halt, and draw me close to slow the dance of time. Let me feel without fault, without shame, the glory of the soul’s demanding, no rhyme or reason in any season to let me be spared. I will come contrite to your commanding, and stand in captive stance, bereft of all pretences, almost witless in my senses. Yet still will I pour forth love and pulse with desire, my being quickening ever in your presence, my brow warmed with your eyes of burning fire, knowing that you cared. Humble in my right, I turn my back to bear the lash of might of words with no beg or plea for just cause, knowing only that the grail is mine. No strike can ever take away the truth or tally for the crime. No hands will come together in applause to right a wrong. It is only fair to face alone the torrent of your judgement song, and when you have had your fill and feel the justice spent, allow me then the grace and joy to appease and repent.

THE SALT TEARS

The rains weep the tears of AwynBeag for you,

And the winds sigh her lament across the land to you,

The heart of the fire glows hot embers of her deepest love for you,

And the steepest mountain rises high to stretch her mind to you.

She wanders through your dreams to reach you in your deepest sleep,

And she broods hard in the ancient stillness to send her will into wild lands.

Her gentle wail of loneliness echoes from moor to shore and sands,

And she fills her little hands with the tears that weep for you,

The taste of salt upon her tongue, the soft swaying ocean of love for you.

ORPHAN APPLE

Who could ever paint a day like this when autumn has taken her last breath,

When she slips away in quiet death, her pulse now deep within the earth?

The moon in eclipse drew the dark veil of mourning across her face last night

As the icy fingers of winter stole the widow’s summer garments for her own.

What a sight to see the bright ball of white sun at dawn trying to warm stark skies

And who can forget the taste of the lone orphan apple clinging to its naked mother?

Just the red wolfhound and myself to share such a sacred prize when there is no other,

Our eyes half closed in the pleasure of sipping upon that last vested treasure.

This is the nectar of memorial wine at earth’s glorious wake when nature sleeps,

And this is the time the maiden weeps when she sits alone upon her winter throne.

THERE IS NOTHING…

There is nothing I can say when love loses her life, when no pining is suffice, when cruelty kills beauty, and bitterness reels in strife.  There is nothing I can say to take away all the fears, when love is sealed in diamonds of tears, when hearts that were full are now culled and broken, when words are uttered that should never have been spoken.  There is nothing I can say to mend the loom that spins happiness, when doom has fallen on love's gentle caress.  There is nothing I can say when the bird cannot rise with wings that are torn and she will never sing again about soaring in skies.  What can I say now but nothing at all, for nothing now rules where love had her call.  What can I do now but embrace my own death, for the only love I have known has stolen my breath.

THE VIGIL

When all the world is sleeping and I am awake, I am awake to keep vigil over love, to ask the stars to gather you into their keeping, to chide the moon for only half of her attention, and to scold the sun for scooting away until night turns to day.  And of course, I should not mention, but I will, the state of my own heart going through the mill, churning and grinding between kissing and missing, remembering the clasp of your arms, the seal of your lips upon mine, the complete and utter loss of time, that now and forever stands still.  Come back to me, come back, my love, when all the world is sleeping and I am awake, awake and dreaming, awake and insane, your absence the bane of my life, your presence sorely missed.  I miss you, my love, and want you back, safe in my keeping.

SO FAR AWAY

I am veiled with the silent light of you, bright soul,

So far away.

I am clothed in the flight of the wind that takes my thoughts to you,

So far away,

And I am clad only in the soft music of your voice of love for me,

So far away.

I call out from the depths of a plaintive air,

My heart wild in its calling on a sickle-moon night,

My body stream-cool, yearning for your warm lips to rest upon my hair.

I anchor into safe nesting with you, cradled in your arms, as is my right.

I am pining for the laughter of you now in distant moors,

So far away.

I am claiming your breath with mine that sighs with ancient seas,

So far away,

And I am calling for the four white winds of the Earth to protect you for me,

So far away.

DWINA ***

Note: I had intended to write of poetry and interesting poems taken from the great wealth of Irish poets, with glimpses into their lives, the stuff of research that I love, but some hankering in my mind caused me to shift direction and explore some poetry and poetry in prose of my own I had written about longing and loss.  Perhaps it was a moment of revelation or self-indulgence that I could read these poems more easily again.  They are not meant to make others feel sad but just to display the use of words I used to conquer loss and make good mourning possible.