Can't Sleep - Words Fall Short

It is now 1:12am and I can't sleep.  I feel like writing a post but don't know what to say.  So am staring at a blank page with the cursor blinking, waiting for the next thought, word, sentence.  My mind is blank but that is an illusion.  I know I can't sleep because my mind won't turn off but try as hard as I might, my thoughts are slippery, elusive and refuse to be tamed.

So now, I turn to my feelings.  What do I feel?  Cursor is blinking while I think about this.  Answer: nothing.

So now I turn to books.  What have I read recently that can describe what I feel?  Or where I am at?  Ahhh, now I am getting somewhere.  Immediately, I think of two poems that basically say that when one is grieving the death of a loved one, words fall short.

Epilogue

by John Berryman

He died in December. He must descend
Somewhere, vague and cold, the spirit and seal,
The gift descend, and all that insight fail
Somewhere.  Imagination one's one friend
Cannot see there.  Both of us at the end.
Nouns, verbs do not exist for what I feel.

So maybe it is not that I don't feel anything....maybe it is that I have run out of ways to express what I feel.

Another poem that speaks to and for me:

In Memoriam A.H.H. - Canto V

by Lord Alfred Tennyson

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within. 

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

RIP beloved Josh

"In Memoriam" Canto IV - "deep vase of chilling tears" by Tennyson

Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,

that grief hath shaken into frost!

This says to me that tears of grief are deep - even, bottomless.  No matter how many are shed, there are as many or more to replace them - fed by an eternal fountain or wellspring of grief.  But sometimes the tears are frozen within, crystallized, like frost on blades of grass.  What will break them so they can freely flow?

Maybe a thought, a picture, a memory, a gift, a touch, a hug, a song, a quote, a book, a movie, a scene, a poem, a word, a dream, a look, a remark, a question, an answer, a day, an anniversary, a holiday, a place, a room, an item, a keepsake, a grave, an eulogy, a hope, a fear, a wish.

And despite the pain of tears - and maybe it is the avoidance of the pain that the tears are frozen - they are good for us.  If we find ourselves in this frosty state, we may need to do something lest we remain chilled, cold and frozen within.  For me, it is writing in my sacred journal.  It is reading books that make me think about death and grief.  It is visiting Josh every week and writing a letter to him.  It is seeing the pictures that cover my fridge door and fill end tables and the piano top.  It is wearing one of his shirts. It is sitting in his room reading and writing.  It is writing on this blog and on my grief journey blog.  These activities keep the tear ducts warm, free and open, ready when the need arises.

"In Memoriam A.H.H" by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Along with the poetry anthology, The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing, I plan to read Lord Alfred Tennyson's epic work, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849) which was written over a seventeen-year period after the sudden death of his best friend and fellow poet, Arthur Henry Hallam at the age of twenty-two.  He died of a stroke.  Hallam was engaged to Tennyson's younger sister, Emily. Both Alfred and Emily named their elder sons after him.

In Memoriam A.H.H is considered to be not only one of Tennyson's greatest works but one of the great poems of the entire 19th century.  Queen Victoria turn to the lyrical work after the death of Prince Albert in 1861, "Next to the Bible, In Memoriam is my comfort."

Similar to the form of other long poems or epics such as Lord Byron's Don Juan or Dante's Divine Comedy, In Memoriam is divided into 133 cantos.  I never realized this beautiful quote is from canto XXVII :

'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

I have found a web site which gives an easy-to-understand summary of each canto.  This will be very helpful to me as I make my way slowly through the poem.  I plan to write posts on what I learn.

Canto IV
Canto V