In your crowded heart there’s a list:
cares, fears, hopes, loves,
dissipations, disappointments,
obsessions, resentments, regrets, resolves.
In your crowded heart there’s a potted plant
you take little notice of until it’s brown past reviving;
there’s a pear past eating, past its honeyed amber,
entering its blackening.
In your crowded heart there are things to fix
which you can’t quite find the time for,
or can’t quite find, or can’t quite remember;
things scattered as though strewn through roadside trees:
broken hair brushes, candy wrappers, crushed beer cans,
flyers the wind has wrapped around trunks,
and you, with your blue refuse bag and trash tongs,
believing in time you’ll clean it all up.
Then one day in the dark of a late northern afternoon,
going home with groceries, pausing in the rain under a neon sign,
the glistening sidewalk stretching toward a hidden horizon,
something hobbled in you breaks free,
something lifts without reason or cause,
something comes, brief but deep as an embrace,
something as unearned as your birth,
and you walk on toward that horizon,
shouldering a lesser burden.
This is amazing, Stephen. Either it is one of your very best, or I am very ripe for the hearing…likely both. Thank you.
Thank you Ann! You are kind.
I loved this and also needed this. Thank you.
Thank you so much Rebecca.
(sigh)
I’ll take that as a good “sigh”. Thanks Edward.
Beautiful…resonates deeply
Thank you so much kellie.
Thank you for “book ending” my inspiring week – the privilege of hearing hope from Gabor Mate, the doctor and a very human, sweet ripening poem by Stephen Berg, the poet. Anne
Thank you Anne! Gabor Mate is indeed inspiring, heard him here in Victoria last year.
As I sat with my mother in hospice recently, I was very aware of that list of “cares, fears, hopes, loves, dissipations, disappointments, obsessions, resentments, regrets, resolves”. There were so many conversations that hadn’t happened. As I realized that now they never would, somehow, what seemed to matter most was the love I felt, the sadness of knowing the end was near, but also the tenderness that goes with helping someone who is no longer able to do things themselves, and the comfort in realizing that my mother had done her best. I hope as time goes on, I can keep some of that clutter out of my “crowded heart” and instead, remember what mattered most in those moments.
As always, thank you Stephen for sharing beautiful thoughts and making me cry and smile at the same time.
Thank you, and beautifully said Diane. Thinking of you as you continue to treasure memories, recall what truly matters and walk the path of grief over your mother.
This is a gift and a promise. Thank you.
Thank you Joyce!
Ahh. Exhale. Puts me in mind of these lines of Robert Browning’s I read this week:
“…My soul/smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll/freshening and fluttering in the wind”. From “The Last Ride Together”.
Beautiful. Thank you Susan, for those lines!
Beautiful and true <3
Thank you Claire.
Thanks Steve…Needing to lessen my burden these days.
Thanks Len. I understand that need.
Oh, spare me the fate of ‘a pear past eating’
Thanks for the smile Tiffany.
‘and you, with your blue refuse bag and trash tongs,
believing in time you’ll clean it all up.’
As always, lovely and poignant, Stephen.
I feel like that something hobbled in me is on the verge of breaking free. Perhaps turning 60 has that effect on a person…
Thank you Laurie! And yes, perhaps that’s true. 🙂
As others have remarked, “Ahh.” Your words are hope incarnate for me. Thank you.
Thank you Wenda! That means much to me.