Day 848: A Letter in November

Poetry is a medium in which pain can be transformed into something else: beauty, grace, acceptance.

This poem may seem full of resignation at first - but no - that is not the feeling we are left with after reading it. The pain, the grief, the loss clearly expressed here is not just a testament to the suffering, but more importantly, to the depth and intensity of feeling felt, a proof of lasting love. The last line, in spite of everything, is affirmative. The poem in its very being huddles 'so close to life,' to hope, to renewal.

A Letter - Ted Kooser

I have tried a dozen ways
to say those things
and have failed: how the moon
with its bruises
climbs branch over branch
through the empty tree;
how the cool November dusk,
like a wind, has blown
these old gray houses up
against the darkness;
and what these things
have come to mean to me
without you. I raked the yard
this morning, and it rained
this afternoon. Tonight,
along the shiny street,
the bags of leaves -
wet-shouldered
but warm in their skins -
are huddled together, close
so close to life.