There are mornings
whose blues are unspeakable,
whose yellows are far too dandelion
to dilute under sun.
You should have died in November.
I could count you in raw clouds,
reflected in reds rotting to brown.
I could paint all color siphoned to straw,
brighten it with blood kissed from my fingers
caught on the skeletons of roses.
But there is room for loss
even in blooming. I can mourn
you vineless, thornless,
worn open as the hole I tear
over my chest, where my heart was.
Susan Daniels Poetry 
Excellent. Excellent. Is it going to be a long night? >KB
Hey, KB! How are you? This has been brewing a while. I can only hope tonight will be long! Glad you liked this.
I’ll be up if I can be of any assistance. I loved it!>KB
Thank you! I will let you know if more is coming. This took a while and blocked everything else up until I finished it–hah–as if anything we do is ever finished.
Never, but I finally fixed Wind Rose earlier. Now even I like it.
Wonderful! Send it to me, pretty please…
Good to hear that more excellence is in the becoming of your pen.
Oh, you! Thanks…
” i could count you in raw clouds”
perfection. xx
Aw, Miriam, thank you!
Beautiful and fine poetry.
Thank you!
When the world seems turned up too bright, like a TV picture tuned all wrong. I can identify with the emotion in this Susan – it’s very beautiful.
Holly, thank you. This was a thought I originally had when my mother passed away, three Mays ago. The season seemed too beautiful for loss.
This is superior work.
Nelle, thank you. Has been cooking for a while, blocking everything else behind it.
Well worth it.
You couldn’t get more brilliant dear!
Oh, gosh, Deb–now I am blushing. Glad you liked this!
This harpooned my heart and yanked. Good work.
Alice, thank you. It has been simmering a while. I need to visit you soon–I miss my Alice Keys reading.
🙂
this may be my favorite poem written by you Susan. absolutely stunning work
Stacy, thank you. This one took a while to come out, believe me!
You bend your reader’s heart in your direction so that one feels the grief you continue to experience for the loss of your Mother…
Lindy, thank you. My grief has mellowed to the point I can write about her loss now. Took a long, long time. I remember the morning of her funeral was a gorgeous May morning, and I remember thinking a thought that generated this. Took three years to rise to the surface, though.
Wow! All I can say.
Thank you so much for sharing your poetry.
Georgia, thank you. Had to let that one out.
I am finding myself circling around the yellow and the dandelion especially.
I am taken with your idea that it is easier to mourn at a darker, rainier, grayer time of year. Maybe what makes mourning even more enveloping is the fact that blue is so blue and yellow is so alive, so living like a dandelion and not hidden away in some rainy, lock box of the heart. When things are beautiful we want to share that beauty, don’t we? And that is what is so lovely and what stings in this poem.
I sometimes think that sadness is never more acute than when it happens in the midst of such spectacular and yet gentle beauty. There is the beauty of mourning and of the sublime, but that to me is a terrible beauty that awes and overwhelms. Sometimes it is the soft beauty of things that makes me feel loss more than anything else. Or when I walk outside and feel all of this marvelous life and at the same time feel the intense suffering that is out there too. They are always paired.
This is lovely, Susan. It deserves an even larger audience than the really great community of people you have already attracted to your wonderful blog.
Jeremy, wow–thank you! What struck me about that thought I had (initially in 2010) was its arrogance–that I wanted the world to be November and not so damned beautiful the morning I buried my mother. But, you are ultimately right, and the truth in your words is a comfort, as well. We can mourn in beauty as well as desolation.
I am thinking about sharing this one. It has a truth to it that I think might work well for a larger audience.
I think you should share it. It’s up to you where you want to send it but might I suggest The Blue Hour? I think this would interest them very much.
Know what? I will send them this right now. Good suggestion, and thank you!
You are very welcome, Susan. I think they will be pleased to have it. 🙂
You were right–Moriah is running it on 7/12 😉
Sending you a high-five electronically.
This is stunning, Susan. And so very real. I always enjoy reading your verses but there are times when reading you delivers me quite unerringly into just the right place and the right moment in my thoughts. And i cannot help but feel that this is precisely where I should be. Thank you for allowing me to mourn with you. To remember mourning for all of its tender meaning.
George, thank you so very much. This was a hard piece to write, but I am glad it does what I hoped it will.