#28 Spring in Poetry

When sunk in grief, let your heart spring in poetry and sing an eternal song of love.

“Give sorrow words;
the grief that does not speak
knits up the over wrought heart
and bids it break.”

said the great bard William Shakespeare.

How true, and wise! A profound thought indeed. But isn’t that something that those in pain seem to already know and understand in an intuitive way.

Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash. Used with gratitude.

Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad wept as she wrote her poem Goodbye, Beloved Breast on the night before her mastectomy (breast removal surgery). Little did she know that this poem would evolve into an award-winning book Fine Black Lines – Reflections on Facing Cancer, Fear and Loneliness and that book would evolve into a much respected speaking career and four more evocative books. Poetry gave voice to her soul that grieved for her cancer-rid breast. Her words –

“A poet can take all the grief from her heart and write it in fine black lines on starchy white paper.”

continue to inspire grievers and writers alike even decades later.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash. Used with gratitude.

There is a poem already and always there for every feeling, every feeling state. Grief? Yes, grief too. It may be a lonely grieving line like this fallen semal flower.

Fallen Semal. Clicked by Neena Verma at Old Fort, New Delhi.

Or it could be full of life and hope like this spring blooming powder-puff tree basking in rising sun’s glory.

Spring Blossom. Clicked by Neena Verma at Old Fort, New Delhi.

And if you don’t find a poem that is a true and full expression of the particularity of your pain, then pen one. Poetry offers the safe and creative space to heal our pain. What form your poetry takes does not matter.

Sometimes just a tiny haiku is expansive enough to hold all of your grief in its embrace.

“a world of grief and pain
flowers bloom
even then”

~ Kobayashi Issa

And sometimes even a long lament may feel too inadequate for your heart to let out its cry of grief. Read my poem September ... A Verse of Life, Loss, Lament, Longing & Love to understand what I mean. It is my Post #7 on this very substack newsletter.

Grief is not an empty-handed visitor. It brings along an entangled ball of emotions. The more you try to untwist it, the more unruly it gets. One feels knotted in a horde of feelings. There is hardly, if any, compassionate and understanding space that grievers find where they can allow their vulnerabilities and deepest emotions an honest expression. It is in such abyss of lost-ness and loneliness, that poetry shows up as the kind-hearted and creative therapist for a grief-struck heart. Those in grief naturally take to poetry. It gently nudges the unconscious, sometimes even unspeakable, emotions to let their truth be unacknowledged, unravelled and untangled. How else can you explain the waywardness and also kindness of grief, if not through the creative medium of poetry –

“Grief is a most peculiar thing.
It is like a window

that will simply open of its own accord.

But it opens a little less each time;
and one day

we wonder what has become of it.”

~ Arthur Golden

Poetry does not just help take the weight off chest by allowing voice to private emotions, but it also calms, balms and warms the grieving mind and heart. Even more importantly, it helps resuscitate love – the eternal bond with our deceased loved one.

I call ‘grief … the cry of love’. In my lived experience as a bereaved mother, and in my professional experience as a ‘Resilience, Grief, Post-Traumatic Growth & Wellbeing Specialist’, I so often experience and witness the surreal and sublime beauty of poetry in helping our grief heal and rekindle faith.

“Spring sang softly  
as Winter died,

I’ll bloom for you;  
while my heart  
still cries.”

~ Angie Weiland-Crosby

Photo by Yoksel 🌿 Zok on Unsplash. Used with gratitude.

Spring, it seems, provides just the right setting for our grief to invoke love. Poet Amanda Weir-Gertzog sure thinks so –

Our daffodils 
are blooming now.

Whispering to
each wanderer
and griever — 
Shh…
I am here.

Take a moment.
Ponder.
Cup longing
and memory
in your right hand.
Cup beauty
and yearning
in your left.

And plant the bulb
of next year.

Poetry is prayerful by nature. No wonder most prayers are poems or songs, and many scriptures are poetic recitations. When grief invokes prayerfulness, the only form it takes is that of a poem. Here is the prayer-poem that I wrote as the closing coda of my book Grief ~ Growth ~ Grace – A Sacred Pilgrimage –

May we embrace our pain with a sense of purpose.

May we meet adversity with a world-view of abundance.

May we heal our wounds with the warmth of our wisdom.

May we see and create meaning in our suffering.

May we grow strength in the garden of sorrow.

May we cradle our loss with love.

May we savour our dark with our light.

May we serve the purpose we are chosen for.

May we share the nectar of our growth with others.

May our journey of grief become pilgrimage of growth.

May we partake Nature’s grace and spread ours in the world.

~ Neena Verma, Grief ~ Growth ~ Grace – A Sacred Pilgrimage, Page 279

Today is World Poetry Day, and Spring Equinox. Just the right time you gave yourself permission to partake spring, and let your grieving heart write a poetry of life and love.

Hope you find solace, support and strength in my books Grief ~ Growth ~ Grace – A Sacred Pilgrimage and A Mother’s Cry .. A Mother’s Celebration. Please read yourself, and recommend & gift to someone on a grief journey, and grief practitioners. I would be happy and grateful to read your review on Amazon & Goodreads. And if you happen to make a social media post about my books &/or newsletter, please do tag me. Please accept my warm gratitude in positive anticipation.

As a ‘Resilience, Grief, Post-traumatic Growth & Wellbeing’ Specialist; and ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ Expert – I am here to help you in navigating your own grief journey or helping others on a similar path; and re-generating a life of resilience and meaning. I work with individuals, families, groups and organizations. Please feel free to reach me at growwithneena@gmail.com for therapy, counselling, coaching and training in grief healing, resilience, wellbeing, post-traumatic growth, life-purpose clarity, and appreciative inquiry. And please share forward my coordinates with those in similar need.

Stay tuned to continue learning more about the complex multi-layered phenomenon of grief, and my six-phase GROWTH Mandala model. And to cultivate, deepen and spread #GriefWisdom and #GriefSensitivity.

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Here is a gentle nudge – consider writing. It is truly therapeutic. And if you start your own Substack, please remember to connect your publication with Grief-Wise with Neena Verma