October 19: Sad News, New Poem

I received an email update this morning from my friends about their pregnancy.  "Greg," as usual, was very understated.  He wrote simply, "Sadly, this one has passed us by."  His wife, "Jo," suffered a miscarriage.  I've exchanged a few, short electronic messages with Greg since the news.  Last night, when I saw him, he was beside himself with worry.  I could tell he'd been crying.  I can't imagine Jo's and Greg's states of mind right now.

It's one of those times in my life when I am completely at a loss for words.  Greg and Jo were so excited about their first child.  The day he told me Jo was pregnant, Greg was practically glowing.  The last time we had dinner together, they were full of joy and laughter.  Jo was past her first trimester.  The baby was supposed to be safe.  In a world full of famine and terrorism and war, these two people were embracing new life.  God's supposed to bless people like that.

Now, I know God didn't take this child from my friends.  That's not His style.  God doesn't create sadness.  He transforms it.  I know that in my head.  At the moment, however, I can't feel it in my heart.  Both times my wife was pregnant, I worried constantly about miscarriage.  My friends are now living one of my greatest fears.

In my mucous-addled mind, I'm not seeing much light in this darkness, even though I know it's there.  Somewhere.  I'm not sure about Greg and Jo's religious faith, but my biggest hope is that God seeps into the cracks and fissures of their broken hearts and fills them with love.  That's the best I can do tonight in my search for meaning and wisdom.

Pray for Saint Marty's friends, Jo and Greg, tonight.  Pray for peace of mind.  Pray for healing.  For hope.

Without Words

Some things leave me without words.

Clouds the color of spawning salmon.

A wolf spider as fat as my thumb.

Thunder in the comma of lake-effect snow.

I struggle for adequate verbs and nouns

When faced with grasshopper borealis

Or the scream of peacock at midnight.

It’s a fault line of language, deep

As hieroglyph or rune, untranslatable

By alphabet into the raw meat

Of what you feel this morning. 

When your baby’s heartbeat ceases. 

When joy evaporates like frost

From a windshield.  What can I give you

This day of ash and sackcloth?

I open my arms to you, try

To wrap them around the universe

Of your shoulders.

God blinded Saul to peel the scales

From his eyes, make him embrace

Love.  God makes me mute.

Please, take my silence.

Turn it into what you need most.

Tuna casserole.  Jim Beam.  Lasagna.

Fluke of whale.  Minaret of Taj Mahal.

I try to shape my tongue

Into a gift of gold or myrrh to leave

At your empty crib.

Transforming silence