Source Poems: "The Well of Grief"

For National Poetry Month 2014, I have invited 17 authors and poets to guest post about source poems. In this series of essays, each writer will describe a single poem's significance in his or her life.

Welcome, Poetry Friday friends! Tabatha Yeatts -- my "neighbor" here in Maryland -- is hosting all of the Poetry Friday links today. You will find all things poetry at Tabatha's blog, "The Opposite of Indifference."

My dear friend (and another Marylander), poet Ann Bracken is today's guest blogger. This post is for high schoolers and up, as Ann speaks frankly about depression and poetry's role in healing.

Ann Bracken

Source Poems to Lead You out of the Darkness

Because it was so unacceptable to me, it often first appeared as a physical illness before I could recognize its true nature. There had been stomach pains, severe backaches, pelvic pain, and finally, a migraine headache that lasted for seven years.

Because I had encountered it so many times during my life, I knew the migraine pain signified something was very wrong, something in my soul, not just my body, but my very essence. Depression had descended again, and this time I did not flee the darkness. Instead, I took poet David Whyte’s words to heart and “slipped beneath the still surface on the well of grief.”

That surrender to the process of living with depression did not happen right away. At first I was angry with myself for getting sick again. I thought I had come so far. I can remember asking my therapist, “What else do I need to work on? Why can’t I just get it right?”

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Luckily I was part of a bi-weekly prayer and mediation group that provided a refuge -- a non-judgmental place to talk about my fears. It took a long time and lots of different approaches, but the group helped me to understand the concept of surrender in a new way. That surrender did not mean giving up. Surrender just meant accepting what is and figuring out how best to live in the present moment.

But for anyone who has ever lived in the darkness of a prolonged depression, you will know the challenge of surrender.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

I hung on to those words. They shone like a star peeking though dense fog. But what happened in that darkness? What were the gifts in the darkness that were at the bottom of the well? If I surrendered, would I be able to get well? Who would I be when the darkness lifted?

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

It sounds trite, but I realized that all my life I had derived my worth from what I did, not from who I was. I had stacked up accomplishments and projects to prove -- to myself — that I was indeed valuable: teaching Sunday school, assisting with Girl Scouts, teaching classes, running a small business. But the depression made those kinds of commitments impossible to sustain. I had to take care of myself.

Those friends in the prayer group had encouraged me to take on another kind of commitment -- to explore my burgeoning interest in writing. I had always kept a journal, so I began to journal using the computer. When I had vivid dreams, I wrote them down. Practice with imagery, I told myself. When I fought with my husband, I wrote down our dialogs. Practice for better ways of saying things. When I argued with my doctors, I wrote that down. Practice for getting my point across to authority figures. When I wanted to give up, I wrote that down. Practice for surviving.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

“Anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you.” As I gradually recovered from depression and the migraine pain began to subside, those words echoed over and over again in my mind. What could be too small for me? What was not bringing me alive? I had to finally admit that after 25 years of marriage and two children, my marriage was too small for me. My marriage was not bringing me alive. Those realizations were certainly not the gold coins I had expected to discover “in the darkness glimmering.” But my journey to overcome four years of a severe depression and seven years of a daily migraine had shown me that I could do anything if I believed in myself. And I had always believed I would get well. I knew I could begin a new life.

“Anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you.” That line of poetry serves as my compass when I struggle with choices. That line of poetry serves as the gold coin at the bottom of the well. I am getting better at only choosing those things that bring me alive. “The world was made to be free in” after all.

  

The Well of Grief

by David Whyte

Those who will not slip beneath

the still surface on the well of grief

turning downwards through its black water

to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink,

the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering

the small round coins

thrown by those who wished for something else.

From Where Many Rivers Meet, 2007

Available at David Whyte's website here.

Sweet Darkness

by David Whyte

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb

tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

Further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

from The House of Belonging, 1996

A video of "Sweet Darkness" -- David Whyte reads and discusses the poem:

David Whyte
from the San Miguel Writers Conference

Ann Bracken is an educator and writer whose poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in Little Patuxent Review, Reckless Writing Anthology: Emerging Poets of the 21^st Century,  Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence, Life in Me Like Grass on Fire:Love Poems, Praxilla, New Verse News, Scribble, The Museletter, and The Gunpowder Review. In addition to teaching professional writing at the University of Maryland College Park and working as a poet in the schools, Ann presents frequently at writing and creativity conferences including Mindcamp of Toronto, Florida Creativity, the Maryland Writers’ Association, the Association of Independent Maryland Schools, and The Creative Problem Solving Institute. Website: www.possibilityproject.com

Previous posts in this series:

Laura Shovan on "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams

Dylan Bargteil on "On Moral Leadership as a Political Dilemma" by June Jordan

J. C. Elkin on "Hannibal Clim" (author unknown)

Diane Mayr on a haiku by Basho

Jone MacCulloch on "We Are Waiting (a pantoum)" by Joyce Sidman

Mary Bargteil on Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

Jacqueline Jules on "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes

Pamela Murray Winters on "The Land of Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Dennis Kirschbaum on "Rain" by Robert Louis Stevenson
Janet Fagal on "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats

Linda Baie on "The Way It Is" by William Stafford

Pat Valdata on "Sea Fever" by John Masefield

Shirley Brewer on "The Singers" by Eavan Boland

Renee LaTulippe on "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath