More Dickinson Inspiration

Still enjoying my new poetry book. Emily frequently wrote poetry about death.



Relentless Grief

Mother of Silence, father of Cold
Summer’s birds have flown
Sleeping children tucked ‘neath a fold
Spring’s sod and tears not their own

No scraped knee, nor thoughts of what cou’ be
Processional ended too soon
Relentless grief gnaws malignantly
In the house of a winter moon

The living long to be, unwittingly
Reunited beneath the fold
But desire wars with proclivity
There’s no peace in growing old




I wrote this for a friend who said she finally found the right words to describe what she has felt for years, "relentless grief". People say, "there's no getting over the death of a loved one; you just learn to accept it." I think that it is impossible for us to accept death, because our natural inclination for survival is too strong. When we lose a loved one, a war begins inside us. The battle is between the desire to be with our loved one and the desire to survive. It can not be reconciled while we yet live, so what we really come to "accept" is living the rest of our lives with this battle inside us. We learn to live with relentless grief.