Poe-A-Tree Hop

I am participating in my first  "Poe-a-tree Hop"! It is an activity where bloggers participate in writing poems based on a certain theme and then leave the links of fellow participants on their post so that those who are interested could "hop" from post to post and enjoy each blog's content regarding that theme.

Last week's theme was "rainbows" which elicited many joyful and colorful poems. This week we are looking at the antithesis of joy, sorrow and what sorrow oftentime produces: tears.  Crying can be a very cleansing process, bringing much healing to the individual who opens up the pathways to their emotions and lets their free range of expressions take form.

In my poem, below, I am trying to express that to fully appreciate joy we must come to know sorrow. We know and experience concepts fully by their contrasts.  I am not really a poet, but I thought this would be fun. I hope you enjoy and would love your thoughts in the comments section. Thank you!


Sorrow
So drunk in wonder we become once our souls find Love’s light
For first we must stumble and crawl through sorrow’s dark night.
Oh, what wonder so bitter-sweet is joy once found,
For to have our eyes feast on the star’s bright light,
we must first take our gaze off of the ground.

What casts our heads down in doom and dismay?
Threatening us to not see the world as it is, surely so gay?
I know not your reasons but I can speak of memories both near and far
That have blurried my eyes, blocking me from seeing the most brightest of stars.

Watching those who I love be chiseled down by time,
Eventually hollow vessels of what they once were,
Knowing not me, nor reason nor rhyme.

A friend so young, just barely seventeen years,
Being taken by cancer, fulfilling all of my fears.
Another, a frail soul who understood me and was like a brother,
Overdosing on drugs one morning, dying alone,
sharing his last moments with no other.

Having to tell dreadful news to my tiny daughter
Hearing her soul cry out as, in its net, grief caught her.
Feeling my faith so far from me it didn't seem real,
Seeking God with all my might, feeling nothing as I bent down to kneel.

With life come experiences that can cause our hearts to shatter
They also can be great teachers, showing us what really matters.
Not things made of cloth or those formed from gold
But those lives that enter our own that God gives us to laugh with and to hold.

When grief catches me and I lose sight of joy and of love,
I think of the holy sacrifice God made from above,
He sent down His only son, so precious, with him at the world's first breath,
And had him be tortured and die with humility an agonizing death.

God knows our grief for he felt it through His son,
His love poured out a sacrifice for each and every one.
He promises healing to each soul laboring in pain
May our tears turn to those of joy,
As His love cleanses our heart's from sorrow's stain.




Here are the other blog participants. Feel free to visit their blogs and see what they came up with!

Roy Durham http://royd-spiltmilk.blogspot.com/

Rimly Bezbaruah http://rimlybezbaruah.blogspot.com/

Alpana Jaiswal http://motifsonthewall.blogspot.com/

Bonnie Parker Gayadeen http://bongoisme.blogspot.com/

Sulekha Rawat http://sulekkha.blogspot.com/

Sancheeta Biswas http://www.anshsaransh.blogspot.com/

Anna Sides http://othersideofanna5.blogspot.com/

Jessica Mokrzycki http://ascendingthehills.blogspot.com/

Melissa Tandoc http://grazieadio.blogspot.com/

Sarah Jane Klemis http://almostthere.biz/