This has been a difficult week for many people. I know I've been affected, and have been much more tempermental than usual. I have often found that both reading and writing poetry helps me heal, or helps me express an emotion that I am feeling. The following poem is one I wrote about 15 years ago. It is a poem that I submitted to be accepted to the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.
This is a poem about faith. It is about acknowledging grief and sadness, but having faith that I will be able to move through and beyond that grief and sadness.
Words like memories and teardrops flow down my face
running into creeks that gather, pooling into streams
of sorrow that I cannot cross.
wading is hardest in the deepest river.
carry me over the deep water,
let me know there is another shore
can I see the dark shadows of the trees,
the sparrows and the crows flitting in the leaves?
swimming, I feel like drowning, but allow
myself to be carried by the current until
I can feel the pebbles underfoot and my hand reaches out
and grabs the outstretched root of a willow waiting for me.
Cynthia Ellen White