Finding Words to Speak of Loss

For years now I have written Haiku, in the classic form of 5x7x5 syllables on three lines. The economy of words in this art form requires each word to carry significant weight, and like a setting of stones around a diamond, each word is placed just so, to enhance and highlight the central idea.

Over these weeks since our daughter Aileen's death, there have been times when the precision and economy of Haiku have enabled me to express the confusion and disorientation of such an irreparable loss. Grief is a multi-dimensional human experience that is pervasive and persistently patient in its hold of the heart, mind, body and soul. Grief affects our deepest relationships, re-configures our sense of life's meaning and value, forces an unwelcome reconsideration of present realities and future plans, and all of this accompanied by an inner sadness which oscillates between aching emptiness and overflowing sorrow.

Last night I reflected on this photo, taken not far from Aileen's grave. There are days here in the North East when the sky is intensely blue, inviting that long gaze into an infinity of space and possibility beyond our knowing.

These old Scots Pines survive on a small atoll, surrounded by new building developments. Here, after snowfall, outlined against a sky of burnished blue, and protected by a drystane dyke that has seen better days, its stones tumbling around it, they look defiant behind their defensive wall, holding out against the elements, and the developers. Out of such images came these Haiku.

Clear blue sky, I've found,
is the colour of longing
for what lies beyond.

Beyond the mind's reach,
infinite depths of blue skies;
so it is with God.

The last of the pines
stand in defiant splendour,
refusing despair.

Winter is cold, hard, dark,
freezing the sources of life;
grief is like winter.