Naomi Shihab Nye finds that the dead talk to us through the new closeness that we experience with those who remain.
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Tag Archives: death and dying
How the Dead Talk to Us
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Cinco de Mayo", All Hallow's Eve, All Souls Day, Naomi Shihab Nye | Comments closed
Trying (and Failing) to Shield Our Love
Stephen Crane captures the agony of loss.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "God Lay Dead in Heaven", Grief, Stephen Crane | Comments closed
A Message from the Mower in the Dew
Robert Frost’s “Tuft of Flowers” helped me grieve for my son in ways I am only beginning to understand.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Tuft of Flowers", grieving, Nature, Robert Frost | Comments closed
He Sleeps Less Cold Than We Who Wake
Wilfred Owen’s “Asleep” looks with sorrow at the death of a comrade.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Asleep", anti-war poetry, Memorial Day, war, Wilfred Owen | Comments closed
A Child’s Connection with the Dead
Wordsworth’s “We Are Seven” captured my son’s sense of connection with his dead brother.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "We Are Seven", Children, William Wordsworth | Comments closed
Where Are the Games of Yesteryear?
Christmas I shared “Ballad of the Games of Yesteryear” this past spring when my father temporarily lapsed into dementia. But he wrote it as a Christmas poem and so I’m posting it again as I mourn the first Christmas spent without him. Now that he is dead, the poem contains special meaning, echoing as it […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Ballad of the Ladies of Bygone Times", "Ballad of the Toys of Yesteryear", Christmas, Francois Villon, nostalgie, Scott Bates | Comments closed
For Sontag, Purpose of Lit Was Change
Susan Sontag loved literature because she craved “new blood and new nourishment and new inspiration.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Harold Bloom, public intellectuals, Susan Sontag | Comments closed
Our Strands Grow Richer With Each Loss
May Sarton’s beautiful poem “All Souls” reminds us that our dead continue to move through us.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "All Souls", All Souls Day, grieving, May Sarton | Comments closed
My Father Moved through Dooms of Love
At my father’s memorial service, we read poems by e.e. cummings, Shakespeare, Jacques Prévert, and my father himself.