An August Evening: Poetry To Honor And Heal

Generally speaking, I hate sad movies and books.

As a kid, I hated going on field trips to the bombing memorial in Oklahoma City. My mother tells me that those trips (two of them as a child) left me depressed for days. I still remember walking through the room that had the cases of shoes and toys and other paraphernalia leftover from the men, women, and children who were killed in the explosion. Just remembering being there- just remembering remembering makes me sick to my stomach. 

I’ve always told myself I can’t handle it when it comes to the sorrow and grief of others. And yet, I don’t think I could write a word of fiction with even an ounce of heart and conviction if I didn’t make myself handle it to some extent. 

So, why enter in into the pain of others? Perhaps because I can’t stand the thought of people suffering alone. I suppose I feel that if I can make myself feel even a tiny amount of what they are feeling when mourning the loss of another, then in that way and in that moment, they are not alone. I’m standing there with them, not because I have to, but purely by choice. And I guess that amounts to something.

Last summer, I wrote a poem while sitting outside in my backyard, struggling with the fact that a church member and leader and friend was fighting a hard fight against cancer. Two months later, like a punch in the stomach, I heard the news that he passed away. 

There is much to be said about the incandescent promise of spending eternity with Christ. On his behalf, there is perhaps nothing to mourn. But gosh, I hate death. I hate that a person can be an active and positive force in our lives one moment, and be irrevocably gone from this earth the next. It’s that sense of loss and powerlessness to bring back what was taken from us that drives me crazy. 

Since then, there have been a slew of tragedies in and around my family. I hurt for the loss of dear people taken from this earth, and I hurt for those who knew them even better than I. I want to shake my fist at the sky and kick something and shout profanities. I want to tell death, “No!” 

The truth is, for all my theological pondering and eschatological studying, death still leaves a sting for me. It hurts me that people I love are hurting. It hurts me that there is a gaping wound in the heart of those who mourn the loss of a loved one. I even have my own gaping wounds to live with. Maybe we all do. 

Perhaps there is nothing I can do about it- this death, and this pain. I have no power to bring back those we’ve lost. Furthermore, I’m not a counselor, and can think of nothing to say to console those who are hurting. But I think poetry at least helps me to process and heal. It helps me to remember and commemorate those I’ve lost, and also to communicate my frustration, sans profanities. It’s also a way I hope to honor both those gone from us and those who are hurting. 

Below is that poem I wrote, depicting my frustration with our friend’s illness at that time, the contrasting beauty of nature on that particular evening, and our necessary surrender to the sovereignty of God who continues to remind me that, in spite of every hardship, He is still in control. 

For a wise and generous encourager and minister from our Bridgeway Church family, Bob Willis.

An August Evening

We sat thinking and speaking of life

and cancer as the subtle wind blew 

through the clothespins, knocking, and swaying

the line (empty and thin)

hanging just beneath the sky

            -a slightly yellowed luminescence, 

(what we called the underbelly hue)

and let ourselves be enchanted

for just a green-grass moment 

          -grown too tall and feeling the henbit 

slipping beneath our toes to remind us 

of Nana’s yard some twenty years ago,

(a score too late) as we aged in the dimming light

and felt the breath move back, then forth

across the landscape of our lives.

.....



What specific pieces of art come to mind that help you heal and comfort you through the grieving process? Any specific songs, films, poems, or books?