The Poetry of Saying Goodbye

Later this month, our church is saying goodbye to our very talented Minister of Spiritual Programs, Mary F. We're a funky church, a mix of Lutherans and Roman Catholics, and you can learn all about us here. Mary has been our Catholic minister for the past several years, organizing religious education and preaching at some services as well as doing a host of other things. She's moving on to join a program to become a hospital chaplain.

My wife is organizing a collection of poetry for Mary. Today, in the mail, a poem came from one of our older parishioners, Eileen, whose husband Leo died a couple of years ago. Atop the poem, someone has written "Dear Eileen--this poem speaks so of Leo's life. Such a beautiful man, such a life!"

It's a beautiful poem, profound in its dealing with loss and what one learns in this life. When I read something like this, I am humbled at the feat of great writing.

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfilment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what it's

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will never know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

In Blackwater Woods

by Mary Oliver

What are some of the poems that move you?