Poems that tickle my fancy

One beautiful gift that has come to me as a result of loss, grief and depression is a love of poetry.  Over the past few years I have purchased several poetry collections specifically targeting towards healing.  One of my favourites is The Emergency Poet : An Anti Stress Anthology.  I keep this volume with several others on the chair I sit in on afternoons close to my french doors and tulip tree and I gain great comfort and joy from reading the poems in it.

Today I read this poem and I really wanted to share it with you.  I hope you enjoy it.

Of You

Norman MacCaig

 

When the little devil, panic,

begins to grin and jump about

in my heart, in my brain, in my muscles,

I am shown the path I had lost

in the mountainy mist.

 

I’m writing of you.

 

When the pain that will kill me

is about to be unbearable,

a cool hand puts a tablet on my tongue and the pain

dwindles away and vanishes.

 

I’m writing of you.

 

There are fires to be suffered,

the blaze of cruelty, the smoulder

of inextinguishable longing, even

the gentle candleflame  of peace

that burns too.

 

I suffer them.  I survive.

 

I’m writing of you.