Grief Poems
Duino Elegies: The First Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
......
For Grief
by John O'Donohue
When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you becomes fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.
......
Lord Ullin's Daughter
by Thomas Campbell
A chieftain, to the Highlands bound,
Cries, ''Boatman, do not tarry!
And I'll give thee a silver pound
To row us o'er the ferry!''--
''Now, who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,
This dark and stormy weather?''
''O, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle,
And this, Lord Ullin's daughter.--
......
An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow
by Les Murray
The word goes round Repins,
the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There's a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can't stop him.
The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile
and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk
and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets
......
The Ballad Of Father Gilligan
by William Butler Yeats
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day
For half his flock were in their beds
Or under green sods lay.
Once, while he nodded in a chair
At the moth-hour of the eve
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.
......
Drowning in the Sea of Sorrow
by Mario Odekerken
I am drowning
in the sea of sorrow,
no storm,
just the weight
of stillness.
Waves do not crash,
they whisper
regret,
pulling me under
......
The Sea Inside
by Jonathan Goff
The Sea Inside
When the earth was formless and void,
what did You see?
What shimmered in that hush
before the first word?
What stirred in You,
to utter light
into the silence?
When the Spirit hovered over the waters,
did it tremble?
......
letter from a quieter version of me
by Rikske Kessner
letter from a quieter version of me
for my love
love— some days i still hear it.
the beeping, the boots in the hallway,
the way someone said
we almost lost him
without saying my name.
they tell me it was twenty-nine pints.
......
I cried every day until i didn’t
by Tabitha Scott
dear friend
thank you for showing up
I cried every day
some days no idea why
just tears just the ache
just the silence
the tears never ran out
and neither did you
you didn’t ask me to stop
you didn’t look away but
......
Grief
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
I remember the grief in Samuel
when Saul failed,
like the grief in Nile
when blood crept into it —
just like it creeps into the bones of
this earth.
The rage in grief is distant but distinct,
escorted by bits of frozen nuts
and wizened grains of desert sand,
......
