Poetry as a Closure to What Cannot Be Closed

Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski (translated by Clare Cavanagh)
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

Like so many, I've been struggling with my feelings about what happened on Friday in Connecticut.  Unlike many, I've refrained from posting anything on Facebook or Twitter and wasn't even sure I was going to say anything about it here this morning.  I understand the need some people have to talk about tragedy in a public forum:  the media for whom recapitulation and conjecture is part of their job, political and spiritual leaders who are called to offer words of compassion and wisdom, all those individuals who feel anger, fear, despair, isolation and turn to others for reassurance. 

My usual response to crisis or tragedy, however, is silence.  Not a silence born of denial or disconnect, rather a silence that emerges from a need to search for Light to illumine the darkness.  If I reach for words too soon, it extinguishes any spark I might find. 

Rumi and John of the Cross have both said that silence is the (first) language of the Holy One and it is to that language, one that as an adult in exile I've had to relearn, that I return.

Eventually, when I feel that words will fan the ember and help the flame grow, I turn to poetry.  The pauses for silence in the lines, the economy of language that gives each word import, the imagery that evokes emotions that are often too knotted to name-- poems are my bridge between conversation with God (silence) and conversation with others. 

Zagajewski's poem that I chose for today can be found in The Art of Losing:  Poems of Grief & Healing, edited by poet Kevin Young.  This collection of 150 poems is an invaluable resource for anyone for whom poetry resonates in times of grief and sorrow. As Young says in his introduction,  "  . . . I think it is in grief that we need some reminder of our humanity-- and sometimes, someone to say it for us.  Poetry steps into those moments when ordinary words fail;  poetry as ceremony, as a closure to what cannot be closed."