Look, writes Mary Oliver in her poem “In Blackwater Woods,” the trees/are turning/their own bodies/into pillars//of light,/ are giving off the rich/ fragrance of cinnamon/and fulfillment…. Even as the trees prepare to let go into winter and stillness they burn with an incandescent light. Sometimes our moments of greatest abundance come as we recognize the inevitability of loss.
When have you made beauty out of facing loss?
Remembering the moment of my mother’s death holds a time of surprisingly beauty for me. It happened at home, in the early morning and after her body was clothed in a favorite dress and perky hat and then taken for cremation, I experienced the sky breaking into its May glow and the sound of the dawn chorus of birdsong filling the crisp morning air. My short poem expressing this experience still gives me a quiet calmness.