A Poem for a Thursday #163

Ellen Bass is an American poet who grew up in New Jersey and received an MA in creative writing from Boston University where she studied with Anne Sexton. She is the chancellor of the American Academy of Poets and teaches at Pacific University. She says of her writing, “I work to speak in a voice that is meaningful communication. Poetry is the most intimate of all writing. I want to speak from me to myself and then from me to you.”

The Thing Is
Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even 
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.