Silent Poetry Reading: for Claire
Updated November 10,2021
Every year (more or less) on this day, I participate in the Bloggers Silent Poetry Reading on the Feast of St. Brigid. I’ve never been able to find out how it originated, but went with the flow of what I saw around me, posting poems I liked. I’ve posted an ode to nature by the 17thcentury poet Thomas Traherne, a poem about grief by Pablo Neruda and one of my own, as well.
This year, I found out what this silent poetry reading is all about and it turns out I’ve been doing a sort of amended version. Because seven years ago, this started as a pagan bloggers’ celebration of the goddess Brigid, patron of poets, healers and midwives. The idea was to post your own poem to Brigid. I like that. A lot. I’m still going to continue my tradition, though, posting a poem I like, rather than one I wrote myself (because my poetry is not ready for a dance in public). Still, this year is very much connected to Brigid.
It has been two years since we lost out beloved Claire and we are still raw and hurting. This wonderful woman is much missed. A few weeks ago, all of us who love her got together on Facebook to remember her. Stewart, Claire’s father, reminded us that she would want us to remember her with love, not sadness. And he’s right. Claire was a healer herself, nurturing those around her, helping them grow and heal and find a safe footing on which to create a life. She was a midwife of souls.
On the day of Claire’s funeral, her sister Helen read aloud a poem that helped us all get through it. And it is a poem that still rings true, now less sad, now more about continuing to remember her influence in our lives. And through us and what we do that is inspired by her, she’s still very much here.
[i carry your heart with me (i carry it in]
by e.e. cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
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