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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
This one is a hard hitter. The authors voice is so soothing. The words are so descriptive in ways I would never think to describe grief yet it completely makes sense. I want a physical copy of this to read as I need to process my feelings.
emotional
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
Favorite lines:
“Your body I thought belonged to me
until I learned about belonging”
“The dog’s sweet
seriousness at being worshiped from nose to paw”
“where everything is interesting because you
point it out and say, Isn’t that interesting?”
“What a pleasure to say ‘I am magnificent.’”
“I kindle the image in my body all day . . .
the solid gaze of a woman who has witnessed me as unassailable
the clarity of her vision so clean I feel almost free”
“Your body I thought belonged to me
until I learned about belonging”
“The dog’s sweet
seriousness at being worshiped from nose to paw”
“where everything is interesting because you
point it out and say, Isn’t that interesting?”
“What a pleasure to say ‘I am magnificent.’”
“I kindle the image in my body all day . . .
the solid gaze of a woman who has witnessed me as unassailable
the clarity of her vision so clean I feel almost free”
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
My favorite poem from this wonderful collection:
Forsythia
At the cabin in Snug Hollow near McSwain Branch creek, just spring, all the animals are out, and my beloved and I are lying in bed in a soft silence. We are talking about how we carry so many people with us wherever we go, how, even when simply living, these unearned moments are a tribute to the dead. We are both expecting to hear an owl as the night deepens. All afternoon, from the porch, we watched an Eastern towhee furiously build her nest in the untamed forsythia with its yellow spilling out into the horizon. I told him that the way I remember the name forsythia is that when my stepmother, Cynthia, was dying that last week, she said lucidly but mysteriously, More yellow. And I thought yes, more yellow, and nodded because I agreed. Of course, more yellow. And so now in my head, when I see that yellow tangle, I say, For Cynthia, for Cynthia, forsythia, forsythia, more yellow. It is night now, and the owl never comes. Only more of night, and what repeats in the night.
Forsythia
At the cabin in Snug Hollow near McSwain Branch creek, just spring, all the animals are out, and my beloved and I are lying in bed in a soft silence. We are talking about how we carry so many people with us wherever we go, how, even when simply living, these unearned moments are a tribute to the dead. We are both expecting to hear an owl as the night deepens. All afternoon, from the porch, we watched an Eastern towhee furiously build her nest in the untamed forsythia with its yellow spilling out into the horizon. I told him that the way I remember the name forsythia is that when my stepmother, Cynthia, was dying that last week, she said lucidly but mysteriously, More yellow. And I thought yes, more yellow, and nodded because I agreed. Of course, more yellow. And so now in my head, when I see that yellow tangle, I say, For Cynthia, for Cynthia, forsythia, forsythia, more yellow. It is night now, and the owl never comes. Only more of night, and what repeats in the night.
This is a book I feel I could read again in a year and change my mind about. Despite a few standouts, nothing hit me the way so many poems from The Carrying had.