By Linda Phillips Thune
This Wind
(For Annie and her sisters — Mother’s Day, 2010)
This wind lifts through
the grass and leaves and curtains
taking with it some dreams
but not all
some tears
but not all
some joy
but not all.
What weighed unbearably
becomes light
riding away on this wind
brushing by my face —
invisibly, softly, sweetly —
on its way to where ever wind begins.
A fresh chance remains.
A clear view remains.
Prayers remain.
Love lives.
_________________________
About Linda: My name is Linda Phillips Thune. Writing, for me, has long been a series of offerings, gifts, to those who needed a thought, a prayer, a part of me. Now, as the focus of my life moves away from my children toward my self, writing is becoming my raft… I’ve loved words always, and after a long road to a Master’s in Literature, I am fortunate to share that love with my students. Recently, I lost a daughter. Her father, her sisters, and I are still wavering in the pain of her loss…hopefully, words will keep us looking to the light.
To read more of Linda’s writing, please visit her blog, In the Margins.
Poets can stop writing poems to lost loved ones. They will never top this one. You say it all–and beautifully.
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Linda,
Very poignant. Your poem felt like a raft. When we are suffering in grief, it can be so difficult to know that the darkness is not everything, that light is here too. Your lines that suggest what is lost, but repeat “not all” drive this message home beautifully. It’s almost as if we say it like a prayer, over and over, that we will come true(eventually).
I work as a therapist with mother’s who have lost their babies. I am going to share this poem with someone I met last night.
Thanks for doing this important work.
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anhinga, your comment is especially poignant in that it comes from someone — you — who also lost a loved one not that long ago.
Linda’s poem is beautiful. In my email to her, I think I described it as being subtle yet deep. It has so much lightness to it, clearly hope, but also loss. Letting go, little by little.
Linda, thank you for putting your words out there. I also read the posts on your new blog. What do you think of blogging thus far? And I always ask poets, what is different about writing poetry versus prose? Does poetry come more easily than prose or vice versa?
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Anhinga,
Thank you so very much for your kind response. You are funny!! For the first couple moments, I thought, “Uh-oh, I may have written about something people are tired of reading or cliche” — then you amazed me instead. I thank you so much–
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Teresa,
I am honored that you can find something in this piece that might help other families. I’m one of those moms who loved being pregnant, etc. I was madly in love with my girls at conception. (TMI?) We are such a close unit. Then, as I had worked in the area of support for the siblings of children with disabilties for a time, I wanted to let my four remaining daughters know that they are the joy, the hope, and the love that I can still hold onto… So it was written to them on my first Mother’s Day without Annie. Not all of the girls got to see it, so this is now an extra surprise for them. (And I found out about it being published on Annie’s birthday!) This mother-loss is a deep and difficult struggle–sometimes minute-by-minute is all I can manage. Thank you so much– LT
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ybonesy,
I was very resistant about blogging–seems so “public,” will I be safe, etc. My husband, at first said, “Why?” One thing I’ve learned since April 5 is that I’m a little less fearful. The older I’m getting, the harder it seems to say what I mean–so I went back to what I always dreamed of doing–writing. Somewhere I read that blogging is a way of being published and a way of getting experience as a writer, in addition to honing the craft and practice. I find that my style (which I sometimes imagine as Erma Bombeck Meets Anne Lamott–or what I hope to have as style), fits my temperment (impatient, easily distracted, etc.) as well as my goals (get the words out there). Now, along with “Mad Men” and movies and tiramisu, I have a new addiction…
LT
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to Linda: “Erma Bombeck Meets Anne Lamott?” Now I can’t wait to read your other work. I must go to your blog and check it out. And don’t be afraid thatI won’t hear what you hear. I know their voices well, and am sure I will.
You got me thinking (and I’ll bet other writers are doing the same). As a writer who do I want my voice to sound like? OK This is hard. Two is not enough. How about: Flannery O’Connor meets Kurt Vonnegut, meets Zora Neale Hurston meets Eudora Welty? Too many in the room? 🙂 I was tempted to throw a little Anne Lamott in there, too, but you have to stop somewhere. It’s already a mosh pit.
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That’s funny, anhinga–it’s only natural for me; I’m a Gemini.
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ybonesy,
Regarding poetry vs. prose: One reason I wanted a writing community was to encourage the practice to be able to do many different things–sometimes I have ideas for short stories, other times research projects, other times essays, etc. Poetry, which I can remember writing long ago in high school and junior high (is it called that anymore?), seems to come from a sudden burst of feeling. I’ll be thinking about someone’s new baby or someone’s loss, or a dedication I want to make for my father or aunt–and one small idea of an image is in mind. That sets for a while – and then, at any moment, it comes out as the poem–almost in its complete form. I tend to”just write and re-write” for the prose…
I was watching a movie with my daughter the other night, “21 Grams,” and Sean Penn’s character referenced a poem by a Venezuelan poet, Eugenio Montejo, called “The Earth Turned to Bring us Closer.” Now if I could write like that…!
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Linda, thank you for sharing your poetry with us on red Ravine. I can’t read your poem without thinking about your daughter, your family, your loss. Yet it also leans toward hope and light. I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose a child. I was talking to Liz last night at dinner, about how much suffering there is in the world. My brother is very sick with a chronic illness and was hospitalized overnight last night. He is on a transplant list, waiting for a liver. It’s strange to start to feel the loss, to be so sad for him, with little that can be done about it until a liver becomes available. Your poem reminds me of the hope, the turning that goes on in the heart. Thank you.
I hope you keep blogging. I remember how vulnerable ybonesy and I felt when we first started out. Sometimes it still isn’t easy to publish writing practices or the more personal posts. But we find the themes are universal and that’s what I see in your blog as well. When I read your most recent blog post, I saw that your daughter loved Colorado. I wondered if you were raised there or out West. Just curious about your own sense of place and connection to place.
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BTW, anhinga, I like thinking about voice in relationship to other writers. I like the Zora Neale Hurston meets Eudora Welty. 8) When I think about Flannery O’Connor, I love her writing but don’t think I could ever sound like that, write with a voice like that. As writers, it feels like we are almost too close to our own writing to know what our voice is. Maybe others have to reflect it back to us?
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QuoinMonkey,
I will send my positive thoughts for your family, for your brother, to Annie. She’s been helping me out lately, so I think she must be in charge of something up there already… It does put families in a whole other life when chronic illness or disability or loss touches a family member. A club you don’t want to join, but can find something there that cannot be found elsewhere. My friend, Donna, gave me a book that I love, A Broken Heart Still Beats After Your Child Dies, by Anne McCracken and Mary Semel. It’s a very different book in that it is a collection of fiction, poetry, or essays that describe or tell about loss of a sibling or child. From Shakespeare to Raymond Carver to Anne Morrow Lindbergh…the words are so beautiful…not all of the writers have experienced such loss but may have written about it in a very profound way… On the back cover, there is a quote by Phyllis Theroux: “This gentle, generous, and honest book reminds me why I prefer the company of the brokenhearted. Their hearts are larger.” So now that my heart is growing, I’m finding comfort in the company.
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QuoinMonkey,
I’m a little distracted today–had to teach, then had an emergency root canal, then went to a play for a class I’m taking…how’s that for SuperMom… I meant to add that Colorado is special to both my husband and I. We met there a million years ago, married in the mountains in a grove of aspen trees, and had our first four babies there–Annie was #3 in the order. We took them everywhere: hiking, cooking hot dogs in the mountains, eating sandwiches by the streams in Cheyenne Canyon, etc. When I first moved there, Peter would take me camping; I could just look around and felt close to God simply by being in that “golden hour” of the late afternoon or smelling the clear air. We had to move when the girls were young, but Peter and I were there 17 years. We would visit his brother in the Aspen Music School back in the 70’s before it was the chic place it is now–when you could just camp by Maroon Bells and go anywhere…I always thought Aspen, especially the drive down from Independence Pass into Aspen, was the most wonderful place on earth. (Now Santa Fe-Taos-Red River are all tied with Aspen–almost.) At this point, our family sees Aspen as the place for all of our ashes some day–
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i don’t know much about poems but i liked this one, i like the part about “on its way to where ever wind begins.
A fresh chance remains” there is a place where life goes on and yet we can have a fresh chance.
very beautiful
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blue,
Thank you so much–it is wonderful how just the right image will come into mind when needed. Those were favorite lines for me, too…
I was thinking about that movie, Hope Floats, which made me think of the pattern…
Thank you again…
LT
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Linda, thank you for responding about your roots to place. I’m always interested in where people come from, how they get from here to there. I’ve driven through much of Colorado over the years and have seen some of the urban sprawl, the changes in pollution levels and the landscape as the population has grown. I bet it has changed immensely since you lived there. But it is a beautiful place. It sounds like Aspen is and always will be a sacred place for you.
And thank you for sending good thoughts for my family and my brother. It’s always a strange time when when my brother gets to the point where we know something has to change, sometimes it seems like a miracle has to happen, for him to get better. It’s a lot about waiting, testing, waiting, more waiting. And the spaces between are filled with the love that everyone sends to each other to keep afloat. One thing I was talking about with a friend yesterday was how each family member deals with the chronic illness in a different way. And each way is their way of giving, of holding, of giving back. It’s all valid, all good. I have a huge family and extended family so the network is large. Like you say, it’s a place where you can find something that cannot be found elsewhere.
The book sounds good. I like your last quote from Phyllis Theroux about the company of the brokenhearted. Larger hearts. For they have been through the unimaginable. And made it out the other side.
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