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| Putting a Burden Down (M.A. Reilly, 3.15.17) |
I.
Many years ago, Rob, our friend, Michael and I were in a linguistics course together. There we were introduced to the poet, Molly Peacock, and her poem, "Putting a Burden Down." It is a poem about what we carry and the strangeness we first feel when we release ourselves from carrying the burdens shouldered.
The poem opens:
Putting a burden down feels so empty
you almost want to hoist it up again,
for to carry nothing means there is no “me”
almost.
I couldn't know then--when love was so young and light that years later I would understand the weight of this poem.
II.
Now and then, at the oddest times, a thought will form. This is my life, my mind seems to whisper and I am startled.
Last night, I was carrying laundry from the dryer to the bedroom to fold when I thought: I don't have to carry this grief. The whole world is before of me. What do I choose?
III.
Grief breaks up.
In doing so, it reveals pieces of hope we had thought were lost. What we carry forms us, but how we carry it--well, that is a choice.
IV.
Mary Oliver, in the poem, "Heavy" tells us:
“It’s not the weight you carry
but how you carry it—
books, bricks, grief—
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
Books, brick, grief.
V.
I did not know that at first I would need to bend to grief, pull it about me like one dashing out for a quick cigarette in a down pour gathers a rain coat quickly about, cups the match and then inhales. Then grief feels almost protective.
I did not know that as time passed, grief would alter, change. How I carried it would need to change, too.
VI.
Books, brick, grief.
It's all the same:
a matter of physics and,
of course,
the heart.
Cited
Mary Oliver, "Heavy" from Thirst: Poems (p. 53). Beacon Press.
