Maybe Grief Needs Ritual, as Music

May 31, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Memorial Day, which was observed on May 29.

Today’s poem is a Memorial Day poem about how ritual can contain the pain of grief.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe grief needs ritual, as music

Embraces rules that turn sound into song.

Maybe if one trusts that one won't lose it,

One can turn away, though grief be strong.

Reserve, then, days for rituals of mourning

In which one may allow the flood of grief

Again to inundate the heart, restoring

Life to deserts thirsting for relief.

Dance depends on choreography

As pain declares its sovereign right to be,

Yet performs with grace restrained and brief.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/maybeg.html. For more Memorial Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/memorialdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Memorial Day

May 29: Make a Little Time for Public Mourning

May 30: Make My Death a Canticle for Peace

May 31: Maybe Grief Needs Ritual, as Music