Today was hard. It is the anniversary of both Helen’s passing and of Dad’s funeral. I still love them and miss them both enormously. They are both still part of me, and always will be.
Photo by Joanne Van Leerdam: A rose from Helen’s funeral.
I tried to stay busy and keep my mind on other things. That only works to an extent: the knowledge and the memories are always right there, whispering into every moment and activity.
Poems like this help me to remember and they help me to heal and keep going. I love the beauty of the language and the power of the ideas and message.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short adate; Sometimetoo hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d, And everyfairfrom fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing courseuntrimm’d: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thouow’st, Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
This sonnet is popularly believed to be a poem of love and admiration. That may be a fair interpretation of the first two lines, and I suppose that might be as far as some people read.
It hurts when someone who we think should love and/or appreciate us does not. It’s also a fact of life that not everyone is going to like, appreciate or love us. After all, we don’t like, appreciate or love absolutely everyone else, do we?
This poem expresses the truth of that, but also adds a positive spin: when we accept that and grow through it, we become stronger. When we are true to ourselves, we find the people who do love and appreciate us, and they become our tribe.
Family isn’t just who you are born to, or the people connected to that group in one way or another. Sometimes, the best family is the one you find while being the person you are meant to be.
How ironic That you don’t like it When I stand up for myself: You’re the one Whose weapon words Gave me real-time training In the art of self defence. Had I not learned To deflect your contempt And resist your hateful words, I would not be here today.
You prompted my resistance, Inspired my defiance, And forced my indifference To anything else you have to say.
So thank you, I think, For helping me become someone others like Infinitely more than you do.
I’m usually a real kid about Christmas. It’s one of my favourite times of year.
This year, though, I’ve really had to try hard to muster my Christmas mojo, and I’m not sure I really succeeded.
Christmas Eve was particularly hard this year. I felt so disconnected and indifferent, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
My response was the same as always: write something!
Verbalising these feelings helped me deal with them. They were — and are — still there, but I have been able to relax and let them coexist in counterbalance with my enjoyment of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Today is what today is. My feelings are what they are. It’s all part of the process of grieving and moving forward and reconciling conflicting emotions while continuing to live.
Joy is elusive this Christmas Eve, Anticipation is aloof. The empty chair, the missing gift, The place not set at the table, All murmur a silent, sorrowful chorus Like a incantation, warding off The overruling spirit of the season. The magic of tinsel, baubles and tree Cannot dispel the indifference Cast by Memory and Grief as they linger, Neither out of sight nor mind Amid the coloured lights and carolling On Christmas Eve without you.
I wrote this poem a while ago, but it seems so relevant at this point of 2020. Every time my Christmas fairy lights flick on lately, I think of this poem.
It’s the time of year when people want me to attend parties and end of year gatherings for work or other groups. They want me to sparkle, but I feel as though I am still so tangled and frayed and broken, I just can’t.
Yet again, I find myself ‘faking normal’ and smiling and nodding while wishing I could go home and go to bed instead. It’s a well-practised skill that, quite honestly, I wish I had never had to learn in the first place.
Hence my choice of new Christmas decoration, hung lovingly on my tree in honour of the mess that 2020 has been.
It’s fair to say I enjoy this bauble far more than I have enjoyed this year.
These words have been in my mind again the past couple of weeks, following the death of my father and the passing of one of my closest friends on the day of his funeral. Losing them both within five days of each other was more painful than I can describe.
Photo artwork by Joanne Van Leerdam. June 24, 2020.
Tears fall, Can’t stop them, Can’t hide them. You’re gone, Can’t bring you Back again. Why am I always the one who is feeling The pain of the wrenching and tearing of leaving? Why must this pain be so raw deep inside of me? My heart Misses you Desperately. Please say That you won’t Forget me. I can’t imagine my life without you in it, Bereft of the light and the joy of your loveliness, Every room filled with the echoes of memories. Never To be the Same again. Tears fall, Into the Loneliness. You’re Gone.
I really enjoy the story of Beowulf. I read it with my Year 9 students in English, and we explore the ways in which the poetry and storytelling are similar or different to the ways in which things are done now.
That’s why I was excited to learn of the existence of The Seafarer, another AngloSaxon poem of similar vintage, which was almost lost to history for all time.
It, too, is written in Old English, and uses similar devices of imagery and poetic narrative to those found in Beowulf, such as kennings and alliteration. This poem, though, reads more like a dramatic monologue than an epic heroic adventure, and is far more religious and deeply spiritual than the secular, wildly fantastic and, at times, quite superstitious story of Beowulf.
What treasures these stories and poems are – snippets of the past that have survived the centuries despite the best efforts of warring tribes and religious authorities alike to destroy everything that stood between them and the power they sought over Britain and her people.
You can read Dr Oliver Tearle’s thoughts on the poems at the Interesting Literature blog. It is to this blog that I owe my thanks for drawing my attention to the poem.
Sonnets are hard to write. There are rhyme and rhythm patterns that one must observe and maintain, which force the poet to refine and craft their words meticulously so that no nuances of meaning are lost in the interests of obeying the rules.
I have written one sonnet of which I am very proud.
I have also written several others which are pretty rubbish, and therefore will never publish them. I firmly believe that their value lies in the learning and the practice, rather than in the reading. Failure can, after all, be a most effective instructor.
I hope you enjoy the poems this post has to offer, and find yourself more informed about the beauty and complexity of the sonnet when you leave it than when you arrived.
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10 Classic Examples of the Sonnet Form via Interesting Literature
The sonnet form is one of the oldest and most popular poetic forms in European literature, having been invented in the thirteenth century and used since by poets as varied as Petrarch, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Tony Harrison, Carol Ann Duffy, and Simon Armitage. Below, we offer […]
Tonight
Through the tears
That sprang from your pain
And fell from my eyes,
I looked into the sky
Where there was one less star shining,
And I wept for the world
Where life carries on
Just that bit darker
Than before
You left.
This poem and fifty others are now published in a new collection: 
WordyNerdBird 
