And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. .....Robert Frost

I am grieving the loss of my husband, but I feel like I should have been grieving nearly all of my adult life....that's a story within itself.  For now, I will be sharing some of my new and my old poetry.  My "old" poetry shows grief as well, a different time and for different reasons.  The last year has taught me something I actually knew, but had forgotten.  "Everything changes, and yet stays the same."  That is especially true about grief, you can grieve (or retreat from it) about any number of losses, but it always, always will finish the job it was intended to do by God.  To patch a broken heart.  I didn't say, heal or mend, I said patch for a very specific reason!  To heal means to be like new, to mend means (to me) to be stronger.  A heart is patched through grief because it truly will never be the same.

Long ago in a life before Charles (life to me now is comprised of "before and "after" Charles) I grieved for many reasons and my poetry and other writing brought me out of the depths, as they say.  Although, sometimes to only fall farther down as I stumbled backward.

On the Edge

 

On the edge of insanity;

Yet, everyone laughs.

Take care not to feel,

Take care not to look into another man’s soul.

Tread lightly, lest others

See you as insane, too.

This is sanity?

To not tremble with delight,

Or hear beyond simple words?

On the edge of insanity;

Here, I shall stay!

 

PA Wade 1983

 

 

 

Not the Same

 The mirror tells me

I’m the same.

Everyone greets me,

the same way.

My dog snuggles with me,

the same way.

My heart tells me,

I’m not the same.

The confusion and pain

make me feel disconnected.

The empty spot in my every day

and my every night says:

No, you are not the same person,

with the same life.

And never again will you be the same.

Where did I go?

I’m not here,

I’m not there—

with him.

Only alone and not the same.

P A Wade

2013