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bookblatherI've heard it said that funerals, and the rites of death, are more for the living than for the dead. The dead don't care. They aren't present here anymore, no matter where we think they've gone in the end. The structured rituals of mourning--like wakes and funerals, obituaries and memorials-- are for the living to enact their grief.
That's what I find in these poems: the enactment of grief and the attempt to process it. It's not at all easy to deal with grief, whether for a child, a parent, a friend, a lover, distant family, a pet, someone you never met but felt deeply about. In some cases we grieve people who never existed, as in On The Death of Beth Meacham's Father. However, I think the poem most evocative of grief is Journey.
( Journey reposted with permission )
The entire sonnet cycle can be found here. I highly recommend it.
That's what I find in these poems: the enactment of grief and the attempt to process it. It's not at all easy to deal with grief, whether for a child, a parent, a friend, a lover, distant family, a pet, someone you never met but felt deeply about. In some cases we grieve people who never existed, as in On The Death of Beth Meacham's Father. However, I think the poem most evocative of grief is Journey.
( Journey reposted with permission )
The entire sonnet cycle can be found here. I highly recommend it.
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