January 17 prompt

 Writing about Death and Grief

January 2021

 Even though I spent a lot of time with my mother, I was not with her when she died in the hospital.  I had no language for grief. Not until I became a mother and witnessed a child’s reaction to a lost kitten did I begin to appreciate the child within me who was abandoned and bereft by my mother’s death. Even in the face of suffering, even when death seems a mercy, the pain lingers underground. It can then pop up in unexpected places:

Lining the Casket

Two are black and white, feisty, thirsty; the third,

soft yellow, like sunshine mixed with baby carrots.

we name it Calico, a patchwork guinea pig.

It’s the runt, a slip of fur and darting eyes, skinny 

as an anorexic, heart pounding through her fur. My daughter 

loves it with the passion we reserve for the unlucky.

Its mother runs away when Calico approaches.

I take the healthy babies out to force what can’t be forced.

I briefly think of killing it, then recall my father’s tears

when he tied kittens in a sack and held them under water.

I tell Calico, “You can go now,” then feel a fool

for playing hospice with a guinea pig.

I didn’t say goodbye that January night, when my mother, 

wrapped in an iron fist, stopped asking if the sky was blue.

I took the train back to Manhattan, to the job she bragged about.

I recall the flowered dresses with matching panties

she smocked for me, as I line a cardboard box with chintz, 

head down the hill to meet my daughter at the bus.

Prompt:

1. Write about the death of a pet or a death that is not close to you and allow your poem to “circle around” to the death you really want to write about.

2. Write about what you have said about death to a child or as a consolation to someone whose loved one has died.  Make a “list poem” of all the platitudes, such as “he had a good life,” or “at least he didn’t suffer” and explore your reaction.

3. Write an obituary about a caregiver who has died and say what you would really want to say about that person. 

Years later, I wrote a poem in a less narrative style about grief.   You will find in your own writing that certain objects or images carry emotional weight for you.  They will show up again and again in your work, reminding you that you have hit on something important.

What I Never Wanted

Ashes in a vase, September mourning, 

distant calls of loons, a fractured sky,

sullen earth mounded under dogwood,

leaves burned hot as afterthoughts,

afternoon of unbelief, wall of windowpanes,

hangers in the closet, askew and bare, 

their fragile chattering, a sound like empty acorns,

nutmeats dried, the harvest passed.

 Prompt:

1.Take phrases, words or images from your first poem and “translate” them into a more imagistic poem about death. You can see I used the following:

Ashes, mourning, earth mounded, unbelief, bare, fragile, empty, dried.

All these words give a “tone” of emptiness and loss. The ashes and mounded earth indicate death. The empty clothes hangars chattering in the closet are the voice of mourning.