At our program with Temple House of Israel this past Saturday, we began our discussion on “New and Lingering Post-Pandemic Concerns” with the following poem:

The Thing Is

To love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hand,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weighs you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you again.

By Ellen Bass