David Whyte has observed, “Poetry is a language against which we have no defenses,” and Emily Dickinson defined it so: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” The best poems can reflect both of these qualities, and also make us feel like the whole world is conspiring to deliver comfort and connection.

Dear ones, may we bless our poets.

Bennacht

by John O’Donohue

For Josie, my mother

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.