It's An Artolicious Life

"Grief doesn't wait until you're ready for it."

 

My God how true that is. 

 

My beloved sister died in early October from Metastatic Breast Cancer. 

 

Currently, I'm curled up under blankets in bed or on the sofa, nose in books - of which the choices are stacked to the ceiling - indulging frequently in chocolate and tea time, uttering few words, using lots and lots of tissues to catch the torrents of tears, and sitting on the floor finding comfort in my old dog's presence, her face propped up on my legs as she sleeps...

 

Among those books piled high are several of Mary Oliver's poetry.

This one a friend sent me in an email:

 

In Blackwater Woods - by Mary Oliver

 

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

 into pillars

 

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon,

and fulfillment,

 

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

 

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter

what its name, is

name is,

 

nameless now.

Every year

everything

 I have ever learned

 

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black rivers of loss

whose other side

 

is salvation,

whose meaning none of us

will ever know.

To live in this world

 

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal

to hold it

 

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

let it go.

 

.....................

 

I'm in love with that poem.

 

.....................

 

Next from the stack:

 

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (always brings comfort)

then
more
chocolate
and
sleep
..............
 xo.