Poetry as a Practice of Healing

I have spent years working with cloth. I dye. I stitch. I crochet. I quilt. I embellish. I save scraps. I take pieces that appear disconnected and place them side by side until a new pattern emerges. I’m realizing that I write poetry in much the same way. A memory is a scrap. An image is another. A sentence overheard years ago might become a piece of trim. A dream becomes batting. A line of poetry becomes thread. Then I begin stitching.

Some pieces belong together immediately. Others resist. Some need to be cut apart. Some need another layer beneath them before they make sense. And occasionally I have to leave an unfinished piece alone until it tells me what it needs. That, too, is healing.

Writing the Blues

I think of the Blues as more than sadness. The Blues acknowledges pain without surrendering completely to it. There can be sorrow and humor in the same breath. Loss and beauty can occupy the same room. Something can hurt and still become music. Poetry allows me to practice that contradiction. I can write: I miss you. And then ask: What color is missing you? Where does missing you live in my body? What would missing you say if I handed it a needle? Suddenly grief is no longer only something happening to me. I am making something with it.

The Poem Doesn’t Have to Fix Me

This may be the greatest surprise. I don’t need every poem to end with healing. Some poems can remain angry. Some can remain confused. Some can refuse forgiveness. Some can be funny at completely inappropriate moments. Some can simply sit beside the wound and describe what they see. The poem doesn’t have to solve grief. Its job is to become a poem. And strangely, giving the poem that freedom gives me freedom too.