No Words
My friend, Darcy Smith, wrote a poem, “No Words.” I am posting it today, in honor of Maya’s Yahrzeit, Thank you Darcy, and Sadie Press for giving me permission to do so.
No Words
Daring blue skies glare down the oak
covered path that snakes to her house.
I step over leaves the size of hands,
cross hatched, damp from rain pounding.
It’s not autumn yet, but they fell
their secrets piled there, impossible
to ask what it feels like
to be flung to the ground.
I sit Shiva with a mother, an hour
a lifetime, a daughter gone.
Mirrors covered, her girl’s picture propped
on a cold woodstove, lone candle stutters.
Clusters of women sit, crying in her living room
one whispers, “I don’t know how to help her.”
Someone stands, sings a quivering acapella
‘There ought to be a lullaby for grown-ups’.
On the 15 year old’s shrine, a hard wood puzzle,
each pastel letter of her name rests in its place.
The young oaks silent, her daughter slipped
into the soft light of that sudden morning.
She picked a tree. And leapt.
Her secrets piled there, impossible
to ask what it feels like
to be flung to the ground.
Darcy’s poem, No Words, credit Sadie Girl Press August 2016, new anthology, Incandescent Mind Issue One.
No Words was inspired by the life and legacy of Maya Gold. To learn more about uplifting and empowering teens and adults please consider visiting: http://www.mayagoldfoundation.org/
To purchase a copy of Incandescent Mind Issue One go to the book store at Sadie Press
“Yarzeit”, is Yiddish for “a year’s time”. It is the anniversary of a death. The Jewish calendar is both lunar and solar based (different than the Gregorian calendar which is a solar calendar). This explains why the anniversary date in the Jewish year is different each year, and different than October 2.
Our hearts break yet again as we remember, and then we turn to the only thing we can – to the blessings Maya left us in life and the inspirations that remain.
Thank you for sharing Darcy’s beautiful poem.
Love to you and Mathew.
~Bonnie
Beautifully written. It’s what we all felt.
Beautiful. No other words
Still brings me to my knees.
Offered with much love,
Darcy