William-Adolphe Bouguereau, “Day of the Dead”
Spiritual Sunday
Here’s a beautiful May Sarton poem for All Souls Day, which was yesterday. It takes on special meaning for me with the recent death of my father, but it also brings back memories of my oldest son Justin, who died 13 years ago. There is deep truth in Sarton’s assertion that “what has been once so interwoven cannot be raveled, nor the gift ungiven.” I also like her statement that “the dead move through all of us still glowing” and that we are “wound and bound together and enflowing.” That last line is wound and bound together by the rhyme, even as it also flows forward.
I love Sarton’s idea that “memory makes kings and queens of us” and that “lost human voices speak through us and blend our complex love.” Never try to comfort people who are grieving with the reassurance that they will “get over it.” This is not only facile but also untrue because mourning, as Sarton tells us, is “without end.” But “without end” does not mean becoming fixated on our loss. Fixation is stasis and spiritual death. Rather, we should blend our loss into our complex love for those who are still alive.
If we do, our strands will grow richer with each loss.
All Souls
By May Sarton
Did someone say that there would be an end,
An end, Oh, an end to love and mourning?
Such voices speak when sleep and waking blend,
The cold bleak voices of the early morning
When all the birds are dumb in dark November—
Remember and forget, forget, remember.
After the false night, warm true voices, wake!
Voice of the dead that touches the cold living,
Through the pale sunlight once more gravely speak.
Tell me again, while the last leaves are falling:
“Dear child, what has been once so interwoven
Cannot be raveled, nor the gift ungifen.”
Now the dead move through all of us still glowing,
Mother and child, lover and lover mated,
Are wound and bound together and enflowing.
What has been plaited cannot be unplaited—
Only the strands grow richer with each loss
And memory makes kings and queens of us.
Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.
When all the birds have flown to some real haven,
We who find shelter in the warmth within,
Listen, and feel new-cherished, new-forgiven,
As the lost human voices speak through us and blend
our complex love, our mourning without end.
