What thread was Robina’s poem on YorkshireLad?
Found it in the General Chat category. Thanks for telling us about it.
I thought it was time for this thread to resurface. I’ve just been rereading it and it’s much too valuable to just disappear.
The poem by Nicholas Evans from The Smoke Jumper can be found here. I bought the book some time ago and having read the poem again I’m determined to read the book just to understand the context. It’s such an amazing poem. Surely he must have really suffered to be able to write that, how could one just imagine it.
I absolutely agree YorkshireLad. I started reading the book this morning, only on chapter 4 yet. Thanks for bringing this thread to the fore again as I get great comfort from poetry.
I’ve just seen this thread. Very lovely and guaranteed to set me off.
After my darling had gone I felt the urge to write some poetry. I read Funeral Blues at his Memorial and my friend also read a poem. I’ll put that on here when I can find it.
I was lucky that as a little girl my mum used to read poetry to me at bedtime. I still love it.
Here are the two poems I wrote about six weeks after he went. They won’t win any prizes but they express the pain I felt quite well.
Grief
My heart lies like shattered glass
The pieces stick in my eyes
All consuming, all pervading
The grief lays heavy on me
Like snow on a winters tree
My branches cracking under the weight
It overwhelms me like the sea on a drowning man
It takes my breath and pulls me under
It takes away my smile, my song, my world
Broken
How can I tell you of the pain I feel?
On what day will I start to heal?
I hold my head in such despair
And think about his empty chair
The agony upon me now
Is like a cloak that weighs me down
The darkness draws around me close
Surrounds me like a choking noose
Fissures creep across my heart
I wonder why we had to part.
Thank you everyone for sharing. Xx
Dear Belladoo, beautiful poetry, thank you so much for allowing us to read them. The last line on the first poem says so much:
‘It takes away my smile, my song, my world’…
For a long time I couldn’t smile or sing and I was always singing which used to drive my husband nuts. I can smile and sing again now but not with the same happiness and of course my world can never be the same ever again.
I would love to be able to write good poetry. It’s a lovely way to honour and remember a loved one. I remember one of my neices writing a poem for my mother’s funeral and it cleverly picked up everything about her Nan. She had studied creative writing at university so I suspect it’s a skill that can be learned.
My creative outlet is drawing and painting and I’m trying to draw a perfect portrait of my wife. I getting closer but not quite there. It has to be perfect.
I think there many different ways that people with different skills could create a lasting tribute.
Death is nothing at all
It does not count
I have only slipped away into the next room
Nothing has happened
Everything remains exactly as it was
I am I, and you are you,
And the life that we lived so fondly together is untouched,unchanged
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still
Call me by the old familiar name
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together
Play, smile,think of me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute and unbroken continuity
What is this death but a negligible accident
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight
I am but waiting for you, for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just round the corner
All is well
Henry Scott Holland
John chose this poem himself for his own funeral. He told me that it said exactly what he wanted us to feel( he chose to leave out the more religious wording). It is I find ,hard to feel this way but I have started to realise that the grief is formed by our own loneliness. If I honest I am relieved that death took Johns suffering away and that my present suffering is what’s left in letting him be at peace.
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It always makes me think does that poem. Could it really be like that. How. What is it that inhibits those of us that are left. What is holding us back. It’s clearly how John wanted you to live on. It spoke to you as he would have wanted.
I know my wife had similar sentiments.
I don’t feel the words in a spiritual sense. I believe that John lives on but only in my heart and mind and that he still is John. He wanted me to live my life , he wanted to think that I would be fine . Of course I am not but thankfully he won’t have to know.
Life does go on and I have even had the odd moment when I have been out with my dog in the sun and actually smiled.
Hi Belladoo
Your poetry is very meaningful,loved reading them xx
I wrote this in the first months of my Grief.
Think,Don’t Think
Cry,Don’t Cry
Panic,Don’t panic
Feel sad,bad,mad
Manage,Not managing.
Coping,Not coping.
Five minutes in grief,I’m worn out
Here comes the next five!
I think i have moved forward slightly from feeling this erratic,but still have moments x
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I found this poem by Jac Judy A. Campbell. Not someone I had heard of but I found these words so true to life.
They say that time will heal all wounds
I know that could be true
It’s lonely in-between times
That I start missing you
Every time you cross my mind
I think you’re here with me
Then I sadly realise
That it could never be
But then I just can’t help but see
Your memories everywhere
Your coffee cup, your old worn hat
And there sits your empty chair
Then I’ll just be thinking of
The places we would go
The people we would meet
And see a person we both know
Then I look around and see
A gift you’ve given me
Our picture in it’s frame
And your favourite program on TV
Then I start remembering
Some place we had to be
And the things we used to do
Then I start missing you
Then sometimes out of nowhere
Your smiling face I see
I feel your hand inside mine
Then it seems you’re here with me
And then some days it feels
So long we’ve been apart
But neither time nor distance
Will erase you from my heart
Then I begin to realise
And it makes me sad and blue
That many days and nights
I’ll be missing you
Robina, your poem sums up so well the utter chaos and confusion of the mind in the early days of grief.
The short clipped words portray beautifully the restlessness of the mind.
I loved reading it.
Xx
Hi
Not really a poem but a verse from a song total eclipse of the heart by Bonnie Tyler it’s worth a listen to.
Once upon a time I was falling in love
But now I’m only falling apart
There’s nothing I can do
A total eclipse of the heart
Written by Jim Stienman who also wrote Meatloafs bat out of hell
Margaret loved that song and I think it sums us all up at the moment.
William
I’m a big fan of Meatloaf and Jim Steinman. He’s a very powerful writer.
Hi
Love Meatloaf can sing bat out of hell from cover to cover.
Rock music is my love from Motörhead or ac/dc to the eagles ive seen them all.
It was at a Bryan Adams concert in Dublin when Margaret had first symptoms of cancer at the end of May and by the 2nd July she was gone just so hard to get my head around. Well off to bed after nightshift.
Take care
William
Maybe we need a Grieving through Rock Music thread. I’m also a massive fan.
I remember in late teens Bradford University Saturday nights were the absolute top of the tree. I used to come home on a weekend just so I could go. Probably seen all the top groups from that era.
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Thank you Mrs Plummer and all on this wonderful Poetry thread. I hadn’t turned to this thread before, what a joy, so thoughtful and uplifting. It will be the first anniversary next month since my beloved husband died, and this morning I was feeling I needed to read something different. So glad I did. Lovely thoughts. Thank you all for sharing. Deidre
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