The Guest House ~ A Poem

​This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-Rumi​

What Grief Is Like ~ A Poem

It is the image of undoing,

the internal tide

that returns upon itself to erase

the very shore.

It is a cool stream of sympathy

that leaves you shaking once it’s passed.

Like mist, it haunts you in its waking,

this memory, a nightmare never shaken.

It covers all things, waiting

for your every turn.

It holds all things, like a promise

fulfilled, for it is the constant denial of

never having lived.

Groundless, hopeless, wordless.

The last bit of you gives way.

Every cell of your body, awash

with a grief that now holds you,

a new existence to house your soul.

It carries you through seasons.

It folds and unfolds as the clouds do.

It is earth, sky, air, water, fire.

It is a midnight, solaced,

still letting the light through.

And as you move closer,

as it enclosed you,

you see a new face on this body

of grief. You see

you have not been defeated.

Your surrender was of glory and grace,

a place of new growth, the spirit

of cosmic change.

It was your own crossing over.

It was made part of you and you,

made new.

This is a grief longing to be held.

This, the mood of the universe.

-Jennifer Williamson