Voices of Experience: Winter Grief

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by David Whyte

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.  ~ Robert Frost

The grief of losing a loved one: the need to walk, to remember, to heal when you cannot heal; to remember what you do not wish to remember. The unconscious call for invisible help, and the not knowing consciously, how, in any way, to ask for it; the way everything refuses to console until we are ready for that consolation. The way winter turns to spring. ~ DW

WINTER GRIEF

Let the rest
in this rested place
rest for you.

Let the birds sing
and the geese call
and the sky race
from west to east
when you cannot raise
a wing to fly.

Let evening
trace your loss
in the stonework
of a fading sky.

So that
you can give up
and give in
and be given back to,

so that you can let
winter
come and live
fully inside you,

so that
you can
retrace
the loving path
of heartbreak
that brought you here.

So you can cry alone
and be alone
so you can let
yourself alone
to be lost,

so you can
let the one
you have lost
alone,

so that
you can let
the one
you have lost
have their
own life
and even
their own
death
without you.

So the world
and everyone
who has ever lived
and ever died
can come and go
as they please.

So you can
let yourself
not know, what
not knowing
means.

So that
you can be
even more generous
in your letting go
than they
were
in their leaving.

So that you can
let winter
be winter.

So that you can let
the world alone
to think of spring.

WINTER GRIEF From
THE BELL AND THE BLACKBIRD Poetry by David Whyte
APRIL 2018 © David Whyte and Many Rivers Press
Reprinted with Permission of the Author

About the Author: David Whyte’s life as a poet has created a readership and listenership in three normally mutually exclusive areas: the literate world of readings that most poets inhabit, the psychological and theological worlds of philosophical enquiry and the world of vocation, work and organizational leadership. An Associate Fellow at Said Business School at the University of Oxford, he is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, where he works with many European, American and international companies. 

In organizational settings, using poetry and thoughtful commentary, he illustrates how we can foster qualities of courage and engagement; qualities needed if we are to respond to today’s call for increased creativity and adaptability in the workplace. He brings a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the nature of individual and organizational change, particularly through his unique perspectives on Conversational Leadership. Find David on his website, David Whyte and on Facebook, Poet David Whyte

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