Last week I discovered a wonderful poet while listening to Terry Gross’ interview on NPR’s Fresh Air.   Her name is Marie Howe.  During the interview, she read a poem, “What the Living Do.”  It moves my heart.

Ms. Howe captures beautifully the grief and loss we feel after the death of a loved one.  More importantly, she reminds us that somehow we do find a way to stumble on with our lives.

This poem puts me in touch with my own grief while addressing the gratitude with which I accept being alive.  It is oddly comforting to recognize that the emptiness one experiences with the death of a loved one is never filled again. That is the way it should be.  The emptiness is actually a treasured place.

What the Living Do

By Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss — we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

Reprinted from What the Living Do by Marie Howe (c) 1998 by Marie Howe. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.  

Copyright TheNewElder 2012