I Rest in Love

I come here today to talk about the things I know and

the things I struggle with and the things I don’t know

I have seen sorrow and loss and violence and destruction

I have seen fear and terror and hate and much sadness

And despair with its ability to silence hope

I have seen these things at home and I have seen them very far away

And every morning in the paper there is more

war and poverty and rape and assault

And greed and indifference and neglect

 

I have worked in the many corners where people come to heal

and grow and be known for themselves and their sorrows

And I have worked in the halls of the giants and outlaws and kings

Where men and women hide their souls in trade for their lives

Or fortunes or status or what they perceive as safety

These places that seem so different are not so different

the longings are the same

everyone wants to be understood

everyone wants to make a difference

everyone wants love

everyone seeks some form of repair

 

I stand here before you exhausted from trying to explain

That it is possible to heal wounds and mend hearts

But it takes a long time and a lot of effort and it takes

The help and support of other people who care

That no one and no family and no country heals alone

That there is a sacredness and honor in the act of healing

and that your healing creates the possibility of healing others

 

There are so many things I can’t say about healing

Because the world is cruel to people who share their tender places

And I only have so much courage

We believe that there is a right way and a wrong way to

Hold our feelings and comfort ourselves and each other

We want people to share their stories or

Maybe we just want some people to share their stories

And only the stories of how they were hurt

And not the stories of what it took to heal

 

I am tired of fighting the propaganda and advertising of a fast fix

Slogans and diets and platitudes that can be sold but don’t help

The three easy steps that are never easy and don’t really exist

I am sad that what actually helps people heal and grow is a hard sell

That the answer is always there in plain sight but ignored

and overlooked because if it’s hard I must be doing it wrong

I am sad that there is no money in the truth and that

The only things that seem to matter are things that make money

Until of course you lose the things that actually matter

Like your health or safety or your loved one or your hope

 

I am tired of the polarity of art and science in the healing of human lives

As if we don’t know that more poetry and song have cured broken hearts

Than all of the medicines that have been invented

As if we don’t know that without stories we wouldn’t know

How to grieve or love or begin again when our lives have been shattered

As if we don’t know that it is the beauty and the bigness of art that show us

What the insides of our hearts and minds hold

That shows us that we are connected to each other and

We are connected to something bigger than ourselves

 

I know what it is to stand before a painting

And say this is what I have been trying to tell you

See that red line swirling over those things that look like maps

Over those things that look like buildings

That is what it feels like to do this work

Finally a picture to give me words I have yet to find

 

I sit with a sorrow that I cannot find the words that would inspire people

To own the long history of exploitation and greed and pillage

For so many people of the earth and so many animals of the earth

And for the earth itself

Words that would help people understand the difference between

Ownership and blame and responsibility and shame

That would stir in hearts not just a desire but a commitment

To do what they know is right to make it right

For the people and the animals and the earth

 

Yet for all of the despair and pain

each morning comes and

nature and people don’t give up

and this may be the most beautiful form of art

that the moon rises and a finch grips my sunflower

eating his breakfast while a hummingbird chooses

one of my zinnias that I planted from seed

and my neighbor greets another neighbor

bringing a smile to her tired face

tired from teaching and loving children all day

And for one brief moment

I rest in love

© 2023/2021 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

*This poem is written with a nod to Guillaume Apollianire, and his poem “The Pretty Redhead.” I am reading Edward Hirsh’s 100 Poems to Break Your Heart and am using the book as a way to practice writing as well as way to practice connecting my heart to my head—in a world that constantly wants to separate the two. Each morning I read one of the chapters and use the poem as an inspiration, jumping off point or a way to learn a way in to both the art and craft of writing. Visual art is so good at teaching sketching—it is assumed that that it can take 100’s of sketches to build the foundation of what might become a painting and with this practice I am seeking a parallel in writing—the 100’s of sketches that it might take to find the right words.