Poet Andrea Gibson died yesterday at 49, after 5 years with cancer. Their poem “Say Yes” never fails to make me cry but I hadn’t been keeping up with their more recent things. I don’t know where this falls in their chronology but I saw it posted yesterday and wow–“the darkness/ also contains truths that could/ bring the light to its knees.”
Grief Astronomer
by Andrea Gibson
A difficult life is not less
worth living than a gentle one.
Joy is simply easier to carry
than sorrow. And your heart
could lift a city from how long
you’ve spent holding what’s been
nearly impossible to hold.
This world needs those
who know how to do that.
Those who could find a tunnel
that has no light at the end of it,
and hold it up like a telescope
to know the darkness
also contains truths that could
bring the light to its knees.
Grief astronomer, adjust the lens,
look close, tell us what you see.