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by Barbara Abercrombie, author of The Language of Loss: 
Poetry and Prose for Grieving and Celebrating the Love of Your Life

My husband wasn’t very interested in poetry. He never read it and didn’t see how it connected to his life. Then one day I read him Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day” with its famous last lines, Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ With your one wild and precious life? When I finished reading, I saw he had tears in his eyes.

Later I got us tickets to a poetry reading Mary Oliver was giving at UCLA. My husband was amazed that Royce Hall was packed, every seat filled. “She’s just going to stand up there and read her poems?” he asked me. The excitement level was akin to a rock concert. And like a rock concert, when she began to read, her fans nodded and lip synced, applauding their favorite lines written by this modest, understated woman in her seventies, who, yes, just stood up there and read her poems. Vanity Fair later compared Oliver’s stage presence to Madonna but without the backup dancers. “She dazzled,” wrote Nell Scovell.

Seven years later one of my daughters read “The Summer Day” at my husband’s memorial service. My other daughter read Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Kindness” – Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,/ you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing –

In the months after my husband died, all I could read was poetry. I couldn’t concentrate on prose, but I needed the bones and breath of language to anchor me in this world. I wanted to read deep, I wanted to read something that cut to the chase. Grief isn’t linear and neither is poetry – the leaps of language, the metaphors, the heart race of something so true your breath catches. The swerves and sharp turns of good poetry felt like the path I was on through grief. I needed to fill up my soul, but I didn’t want soft or sentimental. I wanted truth. And I wanted to read poets who had also lost a spouse or a partner and could make meaning out of the grief I was feeling. I wanted company.

And now during the dark, strange days of the summer of 2020 I’m reading a lot of poems again. Poetry fits the times. Garrison Keillor wrote in the preface to his anthology Good Poems for Hard Times that poetry is for people in a jam. And aren’t we all in a jam right now? Just the tension of walking down streets keeping six feet away from each other, the masks, the angry politics – can poems lessen the tension, draw us closer to one another, give some meaning to this chaos? Or maybe poetry we love can simply draw us deeper into what’s really meaningful in life, make us sit up and pay attention to it.

The famous line about loving each other from W.H. Auden’s poem “September 1, 1939” keeps running through my head: We must love one another or die. Eighty years later that line reverberates more than ever.

In a new anthology of poetry on the subject of the pandemic, Together in a Sudden Strangeness, Julia Alvarez writes a poem entitled “How Will This Pandemic Affect Poetry?” and in it she asks, Will the lines be six feet apart?...(Will) (each) (word) (have) (to) (be) (masked) (?) At the end she asks, What if only poetry will see us through?

In the same anthology, Ron Koertge writes in “Elder Care” about the 60’s music playing in a market during the senior shopping hour. Shoppers looking like robbers in our masks and gloves. We sway above our sturdy shoes. And then with their carts they inch closer, smiling in case somebody even under the circumstances wants to forget/why we’re here and dance.

Last week I joined a Zoom group at a church streaming a discussion of the intersection of poetry and theology, and learned about Lectio Divina – an ancient Catholic prayer practice for reading scripture. Using this method in the Zoom meeting for a poem, the leader read the poem four times, and four times we listened to it, looking for different ways to connect with it. Reading, meditation, prayer, contemplation.

The poem was “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver. With its evocative lines addressed directly to the reader much like she did in “The Summer Day”: Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine, the poem elicited a conversation in the Zoom meeting about the important questions in life, especially now. What to do about the loneliness we feel? Where is home, where do we belong?

In the New Yorker in 2019, Rachel Syme wrote that Oliver’s poems were not about isolation, but “about pushing beyond your own sense of emotional quarantine even, when you feel fear.” She wrote this over a year ago, and now in the pandemic we’re struggling with physical as well as emotional quarantine. The silence and stillness required to read poetry, the solace of reading poets who put into language the complicated contradictions of existence, the ideas and hard questions that good poetry confronts us with might just see us through.

Where is home? Where do you belong? What do you intend to do with these wild and precious days?

Barbara Abercrombie has published over fifteen books, including The Language of Loss. Two of her books were listed on Poets & Writers Magazine’s “Best Writing Books of the Year” list. Her personal essays have appeared in many national publications and anthologies. She has received the Outstanding Instructor and Distinguished Instructor Awards from UCLA Extension, where she teaches creative writing. She lives in Pasadena, CA with her rescue dogs Nelson and Nina. Find out more about her work at www.barbaraabercrombie.com.

My husband and I have been together for nine years. Before I met him, I had been on an emotional roller coaster and wanted to find stability in my life. I believe my mistake was that I was searching for someone else to provide that stability, and he became my best friend. However, our backgrounds are very different. He grew up in a strong Christian community. As I did not, I didn't understand his apparent lack of sexual interest in me. I spoke to him about this before marriage but we never truly dealt with it. I assumed it would get better once we were husband and wife. I was wrong. The first year of our marriage was fine because we were working together to completely renovate our house, but ever since then, the lack of passion has bothered me very much. We have seen a counselor about it and efforts are being made to make things better, but I can't help but feel something will always be missing for me. I know I love and care for him, as he is a great guy, but I don't think I am in love with him. My heart feels so torn: Why can't I just be content with what I have: a stable but emotionally dull relationship? I am so confused. What do you think?

S.

Astrea:

Many people feel as you do after many years of marriage: They love the person they married but they no longer feel the intense passion they did in the beginning.

Every month, popular magazines offer some magic formula for rekindling the passion in a worn-out marriage or dying relationship. Every year, people spend millions of dollars on counseling and various products for the same reason.

We're taught that life is supposed to be exciting all the time, and we're conditioned by television and movies to think that we're always supposed to feel the same about someone we love.

In a thirty-minute situation comedy or an hour-long drama, we see people falling madly in love with one another and living happily ever after. When we see serious relationship conflicts followed by passionate reconciliations week after week, we naturally think we might be missing something.

The reason people can't be content with what they have is because we're taught by advertising and the media that we always need and deserve more. Of course, for some people there is always a fly in the food somewhere. If the relationship is satisfying physically, then they feel emotionally bereft; if the relationship is stable, they feel bored.

In real life, living with other people is stressful, and when we feel worn down or overwhelmed, it's natural to wonder how things could be better. You've been with your husband for a long time, however, and that's worth something too.

Can anyone love anyone else ALL the time? Can passion be constant? When the kids are crying, the dog has left a mess on the floor and the bills are due, it's pretty darn hard to feel romantic.

I won't argue that passion drives some relationships. As unrealistic as that is, it's probably possible. You, however, chose your husband for stability. Even then, you felt you were settling for less excitement than you wanted. Maybe that was a mistake, and maybe not. At the time it seemed like a smart trade-off, but now you're bored and probably a little lonesome too.

You crave newness and excitement. Millions of people are feeling the same right this moment. The wonderful thing about being human is that we can make changes.

If you talk to your husband sincerely about how you feel, I'm sure the two of you can work this out together. If you can't do it alone, join a support group and find a good marriage counselor. Let an expert take the heat. If you discover that you really don't love each other, you can always move on to something else.

*****

Susyn:

Your concerns about your marriage are well-founded. In fact, you bring up an issue that many people are struggling with. People have different views of what marriage can or should be. We all come from different backgrounds, and have all sorts of issues regarding passion and sexuality.

Society has shifted its priorities over the last few decades, and as a whole, we tend to focus on what we think we are missing instead of cherishing what we have. However, your letter suggests that you've reached a point where it may be more than passion you are missing in your marriage.

It appears you settled for what could bring you the most stability at the time. Though it may seem like you're missing something, it's important to consider whether or not what you want is available to you.

If you've done some soul searching and experienced personal growth over the last nine years, then your inner being may be urging you to reach for a higher level of experience. If you haven't changed within this period, however, you could find yourself right back at the place you were so desperate to leave - on an emotional roller coaster again.

As the only one who can determine whether or not you should stay in this marriage is you, I recommend you seek individual counseling as the first step toward gaining more clarity. In addition, meditation and spiritual practices designed to connect you with your inner truths will help you figure out what your heart and soul are telling you.

Unfortunately, leaving one situation to pursue another is rarely the answer. If you would rather live alone for the rest of your life than remain in a passionless marriage, then you have nothing to lose. Just don't assume that if you let leave this marriage, another better relationship will appear to take its place.

If you've reached the point where you are ready for change, turning to Spirit for direction is definitely the answer. Allowing a higher source to lead you forward is the way to go. If you start to experience signs that it's time for you open up to other possibilities, the urgings of your heart will lead you to greater fulfillment.

Do keep in mind as you work on yourself that everyone has different ideas about marriage, and there are women who would love to be in your shoes. Your job now is to find out if you can find contentment within instead of looking for it outside of yourself. Once you can find contentment within regardless of outer circumstances, you'll be able to make a sound choice about your future.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.