The Widows' Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival

I am prostrate, listening

164 the widows’ handbook I am prostrate, listening Elizabeth Page Roberts I am prostrate, listening. The flutter of a swallow’s wings, then a silence that deepens into the distance. In heaving waves renewed mourning crests and empties out of me. I senselessly wander behind the house, a garter snake crossing my path and into the english ivy. I call my beloved, certain as the wind picks up that he answers me. “I am here, all around you, inside your chest, behind your eyes, in the moving currents of air combing the trees. Why do you always forget?” I forget because I forget. I forget because I remain hungry. It’s some kind of reflex. I know. I know. There is richness and unity in me. I’m not even close to alone but all knowledge of the matter seems to roll over me like rain over oilskin. I only crave the hands of the dead. I crave them alive dancing their certain language, their speech of superlatives, praising all. memories, ghosts, dreams 165 I can only be healed by the particular sweetness of a man who saw into my soul and climbed in anyway. Emerson said “Give all to love” and I reply, is there anything else one might do? ...