Kim Langley - Send My Roots Rain: A Companion on the Grief Journey

KIM LANGLEY

SEND
MY
ROOTS
RAIN

We listen, our heart ears wide To the roars and whispers of your grief.

JANICE FALLS,
from Sorrow Shared

A Companion on the Grief Journey

TO SANDY RIDER, VIRGINIA DOUGLAS, AND BILL FICHTER
You lent your time, skills, hearts, brains and faith to this project. You sent my roots rain, and without you, there would be no book.

2019 First Printing

Send My Roots Rain: A Companion on the Grief Journey

Copyright 2019 Kim Langley

ISBN 978-1-61261-949-1

The Paraclete Press name and logo (dove on cross) are trademarks of Paraclete Press, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication is available.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Paraclete Press

Brewster, Massachusetts

www.paracletepress.com

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Blessing for Falling Into a New Layer of Grief

JAN RICHARDSON

You thought

you had hit

every layer possible,

that you had found

the far limit

of your sorrow,

of your grief.

Now the world falls

from beneath your feet

all over again,

as if the wound

were opening

for the first time,

only now with

an ache you recognize

as ancient.

Here is the time

for kindness

your own, to yourself

as you fall

and fall,

as you land hard

in this layer

that lies deeper than

you ever imagined

you could go.

Think of it as

a secret room

this space

that has opened

before you,

that has opened

inside you,

though it may look

sharp in every corner

and sinister

no matter where

you turn.

Think of it as

a hidden chamber

in your heart

where you can stay

as long as you need,

where you will

find provision

you never wanted

but on which

your life will now

depend.

I want to tell you

there is treasure

even here

that the sharp lines

that so match your scars

will lead

to solace;

that this space

that feels so foreign

will become for you

a shelter.

So let yourself fall.

It will not be

the last time,

but do not let this be

cause for fear.

These are the rooms

around which your

new home will grow

the home of your heart,

the home of your life

that welcomes you

with such completeness,

opening and

opening and

opening itself to you,

no part of you

turned away.

Prologue

P oetry illuminates the darkness and companions the loneliness of grief. When you lose someone, you feel lost. In times of sorrow, poetry can be a light, a solace and guide.

Well-intentioned friends and family, trying to help, may offer platitudes such as these:

Time heals all wounds.

Youll have another baby.

God must have needed him more than you did.

They lived a good, long life.

Their suffering is over.

They wouldnt want you still to be grieving.

You should get back out there and (date, dance, join a book club, etc.).

Im not sure it should take this long for you to move on.

This kind of advice was probably about as welcomed by you as wilted funeral flowers, leaving you isolated and in a place of despair. You may not think of poetry as a powerful resource to help sort out your feelings. But poetry can create a tender space for reflection. Poetry says the unsayable, offering words that cant be articulated otherwise.

These poems, carefully chosen for you in consultation with grief work counselors, can be a source of consolation and strength, and a springboard for meaningful conversations. The result is a selection of poems that sing, weep, and steadfastly embrace you. They are digestible, fortifying, and at times challenging and can be taken in big or small bites.

Poet Jane Hirshfield knows. She wrote, To step into a poem is to agree to risk. I am guessing that you are willing to risk doing the good and hard work that is grieving.

Youve probably picked up this book because you have had an experience of loss that divided your life into before and after in a way that leaves you forever changed. Every day you do your best to shower, brush your teeth, and keep putting one foot in front of the other, and you ask, Whats next? Most of the people and poets you will meet in this book have stood where you stand now.

State Poet of New York Marie Howe offered, Every poem holds the unspeakable inside it. The unsayable The thing that you cant really say because its too complicated. Its too complex for us. Every poem has that silence deep in the center of it. Marie Howe knows. She lost a brother to AIDS.

Stanley Kunitz wrote a poem called The Layers in which he asked: How shall the heart be reconciled / to its feast of losses?

Yes, how? And think of that imagea feast of losses. We try hard to put aside this knowing, but if we live richly, with hearts open to intimacy, each of our lives could lay out such a banquet.

Author Lidia Yukanavitch in her TED talk commented on the beauty of being a misfit. She made the case that if you choose not to stay stuck in the litter, you can be the misfit who is willing to dive into the waters of ones life, swim to the wreckage at the bottom, and bring something back to the surface. This is not to say that