Bev Tappan

Category: Grief Poems

In a long, life. – well lived, there will always be grief…

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: A SYMPATHY SONNET

    A SYMPATHY SONNET

    They briefly grace our lives.  We know

    One year for them is seven of ours.

    When we have barely aged at all,

    It will be time for them to go.

    In parting from our pets we learn

    How hard it is to love and lose.

    Happiness is not meant to be eternal:

    This is the destiny we did not choose.

    And when in latter years our friends,

    Our partners and our pets depart,

    They leave us aimless, wondering, at loose ends,

    How to go on with broken hearts.

    Our saving grace is comrades in despair.

    Such grief our neighbors have cause to share.

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: REQUIEM

    REQUIEM

    The skeletal tree

    By the roadside, in the meadow,

    That seemed to greet me

    When I drove into town,

    Its jaggedy branches

    Held stoically high

    Whatever the chances

    Of windstorm or ice,

    Gave me courage to face

    My ninety-plus years

    With a modicum of grace

    And a drop of good cheer.

    But today it is gone

    And I can’t help but mourn.

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: PACING

    PACING

    On the first day of August I taste

    My first ear of garden-fresh corn.

    Not a single sweet kernel is wasted

    And soon the whole earful is gone.

    But with tears in my eyes I recall

    A man who, perceptive and slow,

    Savored each delicate morsel

    As he nibbled his corn row by row.

    He split measured logs for our stove,

    Swung his ax in unhurried arcs

    And moved our canoe with sure strokes

    To reach our next campsite by dark.

    Now as I hasten my days,

    Willing the hours to pass,

    I long for his deliberate pace

    And the will not to live life so fast.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: IN ABSENTIA

    IN ABSENTIA

    The first Monday in May

    Slid off the calendar.

    It mingled into Tuesday,

    Dissolved in thin air.

    The dentist could not reach me.

    He wondered where I was.

    It was an anniversary,

    A day of grief and loss.

    I could not bear to re-live

    The day my sweetheart died.

    There’s nothing that I would not give

    To have him by my side.

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: A CHANGE OF MOOD

    A CHANGE OF MOOD

    The storm has passed.  The pines bend low

    Beneath the ruthless weight of snow.

    The air is thick.  My spirits sag.

    This dismal day bodes news that’s bad.

    Our power’s out.  The house is dark.

    The frigid car is loath to start.

    But down the road an hour or so

    A patch of blue sky starts to show.

    A hint of sunshine lights the sky.

    And soon the pines begin to rise,

    Flaunt white Christmas bows and ties

    Sparkling gaily in the sunlight.

    Then I begin to realize

    That my despair will lift in time.

  • JAPAN POEMS: ODYSSEY

    ODYSSEY

    I have returned to Japan after thirty years

    Since our youngest daughter made her way

    To complete in Osaka her BU college degree.

    Her father was still jogging every day.

    Life and the rice fields were still green.

    On this fall visit to Japan I plead

    For some relief from grief.  I ask

    The gracious Buddha for heart’s ease.

    And as the strenuous swift days pass

    Through alien and exotic scenes,

    I sense a slowly growing distance

    Between my sweet lost loves and me,

    A moat of separation from the past.

    Though no less dear their features be,

    I stand outside the looking glass

    Between what is and what can never be,

    Between acceptance and a world of pain,

    And lightening my dark misery

    I feel a welcome sense of peace.

    The rice stalks now are drying in the fields.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: WISH YOU WERE HERE

    WISH YOU WERE HERE

    I’ve gotten used to 

    The empty chair,

    The unwrinkled pillow,

    And one place at the table

    Without you,

    But how can I watch

    The moon tangled in black branches,

    The sun rise over Carter Notch,

    Or the first flakes of new snowfall

    Without you?

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: SMOKE GETS IN MY EYES

    SMOKE GETS IN MY EYES

    How many campfires did you lay,
    Birchbark, twigs and slender sticks,
    To tempt the creeping tongue of flame
    And feed its fiery appetite?
    You learned to build the pyramid
    With tinder arching over bark:
    A single match would serve to wick
    The pyre construed with boy scout art.
    How many trees did you cut down
    And split and stack for winter fuel
    In the Franklin stove that kept us warm
    And gave us cheerful hearts as well?
    Now as I feed my grandson’s blaze
    Constructed with his sage advice,
    I think of your consistent ways
    And feel the smoke tear up my eyes.
    (July 2014)

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: STILL MISSING YOU

    STILL MISSING YOU

    I say I’ve shifted gears,

    Embarked on new affairs,

    Traveled to foreign ports,

    Shrugged off all my cares.

    But then a memory

    Will catch me unaware

    And I will start to weep

    Because you are not here.

    Because you are not here,

    My love, because you are not there:

    No matter where I look for you

    You are not anywhere.

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: RIVERSIDE LILACS

    RIVERSIDE LILACS

    Lilac’s sweet scent

    And the Bearcamp’s sluicing song

    Give my heart ease

    Now that you are gone.

    Give my heart ease,

    But do not quell the pain

    Of knowing that I’ll never

    Walk with you again

    Except in memory’s bittersweet

    Though comforting afterglow:

    The luminous husk of happiness

    My heart will now know.

    (June, 2014)

  • TAMWORTH POEMS: WAKE UP CALL

    WAKE UP CALL

    Death is the surprise

    Life springs on us

    When we are not looking.

    Even when we see it coming,

    We’re never ready.

    It takes us unawares.

    Suddenly our dear one 

    Is not here,

    Is not there,

    Is nowhere.

    Death does not care.

    We care.

  • RIVERWOODS POEMS: A CHANGE OF MOOD

    (With thanks, as always, to R. Frost)

    I know how Hester must have stood,

    Branded with shamed ignominy,

    And why she took to the woods.

    Public humiliation can be hard

    To take, but on the other hand,

    I have found sympathetic friends

    And shared my woes with them:

    “I didn’t expect to see YOU here!”

    “Well you can leave if you want to!”

    Their laughter dissolved my embarrassment.

    I now can tell myself, “Get over it!”

    (3/30/14)