MORNING COFFEE 44 - landfall
by Susan Weber
For Grief, a poem by John O’Donohue, came to me on the back of a stapled packet from the grief counselor who visits from time to time. I nearly didn’t read it, so tired have I become of platitudes. I can only guess that I was meant to, that some knowing hand had come to steady mine as tears fell on the merciful page. Here was a poet soul who understood my longing, images that held my sorrow well. In his words I felt less abandoned in my grief.
It’s been three months since my husband died. As the fog of nascent widowhood begins to lift there is more pain here, not less. The Irish poet has come to me just when I need him most.
What I ask of you I ask of me as well. Go to a quiet place without distraction, with sixteen minutes you can give to the film embedded below. It remembers John O’Donohue through images of his homeland paired with his words. If the film’s length sets up barriers to watching it, then say you are giving it five and see where it takes you. By way of introduction, here's what the poet’s brother said about him.
“John O'Donohue's life cannot be encompassed within the one act of birth, life and death. He was not a finite act that existed and is now lost for evermore. He is just a story that is written, spoken and lives amongst us. Just as we are and continue to be. His themes of echo as the response of continuity, imagination as the ability to still see the mountain behind the mist, and absence as the transformed presence of the vanished, awaken our thinking and provide food for our spiritual journey in an increasingly hungry world.” — Pat O'Donohue
Photo by Henry Clark CC BY-SA 2.0