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A poem enables you to see your fear as something outside yourself

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I dreamed when I was a boy of someday traveling in space to other planets. It was the dawning of the space age, and my dream seemed quite within reach. During the past few weeks, my yearnings to have “slipped the surly bonds of Earth” were rekindled when I attended with my daughter the New York Philharmonic’s Star Wars concert, and then reading about the Euclid telescope’s astounding images of the Milky Way, marking a new age of discovery of thousands of planets outside our solar system. Goosebumps just writing that last sentence! But with my maturity comes this enlightenment: Life’s greatest wisdom is to know when the party’s over. Even if I had the financial wherewithal of a Musk or a Bezos, I am not going into space in my lifetime. Near the end of John's gospel, right after Peter has been forgiven for betraying Christ “three times before the cock crows,” Jesus tells him what old age looks like: “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not wish to go.“ In Scripture, as in most spiritual writings, our purpose as humans is defined not so much about what we do – our output – as it is about our simple being – who we are. Paul writes to the Corinthians that prophecy will cease, tongues will be silenced, knowledge will pass away – and love alone will remain. He's describing what's left when everything a person can “do” has been stripped away. For a hospice patient, that's not an abstraction. It's their situation – described exactly. If our “life’s purpose” can be narrowed to being loved and loving in return – no longer producing, deciding, achieving – then the last years of a life are not a diminution of its meaning. They just might be its clearest mission statement. In my retirement from revenue-generating work, I find myself trying to unlearn my long-held conviction that a person's worth is bound up in “doing.” My present life isn’t being interrupted. It’s quietly being prepared for that stillness “not chosen” that Christ described. For the time of not-knowing. When “purpose” might be nothing more important than a held hand. Still, I can continue to dream of someday touching a star, can’t I? (Image: The Euclid telescope‘s look at the Galactic Bulge in the central area of the Milky Way. The Bulge is a vast, tightly packed structure filled mostly with old, cooler stars.)

With the arrival of the new hurricane season, here's an encore post from 2013

A couple of notions about death: 1) It’s natural and nothing much to be concerned about. 2) It’s a curse. Emily Dickinson, for example, pictured the Grim Reaper as a sort of Uber driver: Because I could not stop for Death— He kindly stopped for me— The Carriage held but just Ourselves— And Immortality. And Henry Scott Holland dismissed it entirely: Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away to the next room. I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, That, we still are. Dylan Thomas, on the other hand, couldn’t contain himself at the prospect of his father’s imminent passing: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. But one thing’s sure. We miss a loved one terribly after they die. That’s why there is no return to “normal” after a loved one departs. We are changed forever. The lessons we learn in grieving and mourning a death apply to all loss: · The loss of financial security or daily companionship following a death · Divorce or estrangement in relationships · Job loss · A bad health diagnosis · Moving away from a beloved home · The “empty nest” syndrome that affects parents · Expectations for loved ones, say, a drug-addicted child At a grief conference I attended last week, I learned a lot that I didn’t know about death and the subsequent bereavement, and I’d like to pass on to you a few of them. Conference leader Alan D. Wolfelt , a clinical psychologist, noted how society considers grief as an illness to be treated and cured. The faster the better. No, he argued. Grief is a normal and necessary process with needs that must be met as they arise and re-arise over time if a loss is to be integrated into our life: · Acknowledge the reality of the loss · Embrace the pain · Remember by name the person who died · Develop a new self-identity as a solo · Search for new meaning in your life · Accept the help of others He also pointed to the difference between grief and mourning: Grief is internal and must be expressed as mourning – grief gone public, as he put it. What is the path to healthy mourning? Dr.Wolfelt says mourners have a Bill of Rights that includes things like: · Experiencing your own unique grief, with its multitude of emotions, without being pressured to “get over it” · Talking about your grief, referring to the deceased by name, and making use of rituals · Acknowledging your physical and emotional limits · Treasuring good memories and accepting unwanted sad ones · Embracing your spirituality · Searching for meaning in your life as you move forward and become reconciled to the loss I have been invited to bring my healing poetry program to hospice, starting next month. It’s a welcome opportunity, but an intimidating one. There is so much to say about death, and yet – nothing. The wisest men and women through history have said all there may be to say. But I do know how to point to the most sensitive among us – poets, hoping these, who are most attuned to living, may help others find end-of-life peace. I think of the musician known as a symphony orchestra’s principal first violin, who carries the title of concertmaster. They rise just before the conductor takes the podium and conjure up a note, to which all the other members of the symphony tune their instruments. Perhaps their more important role: if the conductor's gesture is unclear, the other members of the orchestra look to how the concertmaster is playing in order for them to stay perfectly together. In times of death or bereavement, who is the concertmaster we look to, with whom our lives can resonate? Poets, perhaps? Because it’s vital that we move from grieving to mourning – the outward expression of grief – in order to reconcile and integrate our loss and live a life of new meaning. This is where healing poetry comes in. Writing a poem is a safe place to socialize our grief – to make it public. How? A poem is a witness — a refusal to let a loss be unseen, unspoken, or forgotten. Like this one by Marie Howe, an elegy for her brother John, who died of AIDS-related illness: What the Living Do Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of. It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off. For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking, I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve, I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning. What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it. But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless: I am living. I remember you. (Image: Conductor Gustavo Dudamel and associate concertmaster Bing Wang of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.)

When our body is being dismantled  our soul is being forged

You’ve never written a poem? Perfect!

At the Metropolitan Opera for the performance of Turandot on Sunday, I noticed two couples – who had obviously just made each other’s acquaintance – standing at their seats and chatting animatedly during intermission. But when the two wives left for the rest room, the husbands suddenly became entranced with the ceiling. They exchanged not a single word while the wives were gone. That’s when the whole edifice we call the human condition began to crack and crumble around me, and I muttered: “What’s wrong with people!” Now that I’ve had a few days to think about this incident, I see it through Deborah Tannen's eyes She’s a pioneer in sociolinguistics and the author of You Just Don't Understand . I’d spent time with Dr. Tannen on two occasions when I commissioned her to speak on communication to corporate groups. My hunch is that she would find the Met Opera scenario a textbook example of the different ways men and women use language to navigate social hierarchies and make connections. Her research over the years has found that in social settings, women are the social anchors. The wives I observed at the Met were engaging in "rapport-talk." They were the bridge between the two couples. But for guys, communication is a way to exhibit knowledge ("report-talk") or status. In a setting with strangers, men may feel there is no "information" to report or no established hierarchy to navigate, so they go mum. The husbands weren't being rude to each other while their wives were otherwise occupied, Dr. Tannen would say. They were comfortable gazing at the opera house ceiling together without the "burden" of small talk. They were engaging in a shared activity – a perfectly valid way males bond. But still. “What’s wrong with people!” Why does our species have to be so ridiculously complicated? We are like birds, constantly shrieking and pecking at one another. Monks, nuns, and even the old Shaker communities all say the hardest thing about their communal lives is not the celibacy – but the living together. I spent Easter at a monastery – where silence was total – and within the space of a weekend I had developed an animosity toward two of my fellow retreatants. And what about ethnic groups? Those who are most similar are the ones who wage the bitterest violence against each other: Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Hutu and Tutsi tribes, Russians and Ukrainians. This paradox – closeness breeding friction – is a central theme in sociology, psychology, and anthropology. Closeness itself threatens our sense of identity. In fact, it was Freud who noted that communities with minor differences are more prone to feuding than those that are radically different. Anthropologist Fredrik Barth theorized that ethnic identity is not defined by culture, but by the boundaries between groups. The Hutu and Tutsi tribes share language and religion, so social boundaries must be constructed to mark their individuality. On an individual level, sociologist Erving Goffman described monasteries as “total institutions,” where every aspect of life happens in the same place with the same people. We ordinarily play different roles at work, at home, and among friends. In a total institution, however, there is no escape. Anthropologists tell us that without physical or social distance, our nervous system can remain on low-level, territorial alert. And you guessed it. The above dynamics can also apply to marriage, where they manifest in bickering and, half the time, divorce. Philosopher Alain de Botton offers this thought: The cure for marital strife isn't finding a more compatible partner, but simply accepting the truth that every human is inherently difficult to live with – including ourselves.

In the aftermath of World War I, Kahlil Gibran wrote this in his best-selling classic, The Prophet : “There are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life and their coffer is never empty.” He continues beyond that passage to describe those who give with joy, those who give through pain, and finally those who give without any thought at all – the way a flower releases its fragrance unconsciously and completely. As we pause on this Memorial Day 2026 to remember those who died in our wars, we should also mark something else Gibran said: through such givers, something divine speaks. The spark of divinity glimmers through two poems of that era: Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" and Ivor Gurney's "To His Love." And they enlighten us with two opposing views of war – romantic and horrific. The first poem imagines war almost rhapsodically; the words of the second scrape like fingernails. Rupert Brooke volunteered for active service at the outbreak of war in August 1914 and gained a commission in the Royal Naval Division. After his first combat engagement, he wrote five sonnets that at the time were lauded for their eloquent patriotism. His poetry, redolent with patriotism and graceful lyricism, was revered in a country yet to feel the full devastation of two world wars, and he was a national hero even before his death in 1915 at the age of 27 – from a mosquito bite on his lip, which became infected. Brooke's sonnet "The Soldier" was read from the pulpit of St. Paul's Cathedral on April 4, 1915 — just 19 days before his death on April 23. The Soldier by Rupert Brooke If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam; A body of England’s, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. Ivor Gurney was both poet and composer. His output was prodigious: he left some two hundred songs, several chamber and instrumental works, and more than three hundred poems. When war broke out, Gurney enlisted. At the front, he wrote the only two volumes of poetry published during his lifetime. He was shot at the Somme and gassed at Passchendaele and was discharged just before the Armistice in 1918. Gurney returned home suffering from what we know today as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, to the point that he spent his last fifteen years institutionalized, where he wrote some of his best poetry. To His Love by Ivor Gurney He's gone, and all our plans Are useless indeed. We'll walk no more on Cotswold Where the sheep feed Quietly and take no heed. His body that was so quick Is not as you Knew it, on Severn river Under the blue Driving our small boat through. You would not know him now ... But still he died Nobly, so cover him over With violets of pride Purple from Severn side. Cover him, cover him soon! And with thick-set Masses of memoried flowers— Hide that red wet Thing I must somehow forget. I will leave it to you to consider for yourselves which poet we should heed in our national ease at making war. (Image: “Gassed” by John Singer Sargent is based on the scene at a dressing station taking in British casualties of a mustard gas attack in 1918.)

May 20. My Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary is coming up this Wednesday and turning my mind toward thoughts of love and life. Because upon my death no one will be left to recall the date that was supremely important to them. Of course, this also puts reflections about my own marriage before me. My parents were together for almost thirty years, until his death at the age of fifty-one. Growing up, I witnessed some of the emotional and physical trauma of their relationship. My marriage was also not spared times of doubt, discontent, and outright resentment. But we muddled on, as many intimate relationships do. In our case, for fifty years, to renew our marital vows at my wife’s deathbed. Writer Simone de Beauvoir is credited with asking a question whispered to this day in the bedrooms of a million marriages: Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen. Jo Anne was nineteen when we met, both of us students at Fordham. And, for better or worse, she found herself involved with me for life. Reflecting on our half-century of both ecstasy and turmoil, I need to ask myself this question: would she fall in love with me if she met me for the first time today? I’m hoping the answer would be yes because although my body is far from the fresh young man’s of my youth, I think my soul has grown into something she would find more appealing today than when we first locked eyes at Fordham University decades ago. Our ambition as spiritual men and women should be to grow our soul even as our body moves into decline. The truly miraculous thing about us humans is that we continue to age, but we never stop growing – right up to the end, even as our bodies give way to utter exhaustion. Many of us are of the opinion that it’s precisely when our body dies that our soul blossoms. This is the thought that led me to write my poem “Always,” which appears in the current issue of Peregrine : Pray always to be mindful of the one who maintains us Feel hungry always to honor those who have little food Study always to learn to be human Create always for we are the image of a creator Be grateful always because each thing is a gift Love all always The tasks I identified in this poem – to be attentive, to honor others, to create – are the things that make us participants if not shapers of our lives. To quote the closing lines of poet Mary Oliver’s breath-taking poem, “When Death Comes:” When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad. You did well – and good.