Your worst fears will happen,
will happen soon. And you
will crumple. Will wail.
Will not know how to say hello.
Will somehow remember
how to stand. How to open
a door. How to sit on a chair
and listen to the swallows,
the relentlessly sweet chickadees.
You will have no words, but you will have
your attention, your willingness,
your stubbornness, your
devotion to life.
Your heart, though wrecked,
will not be erased. It will beat,
will beat on, will beat on.
And though I do not understand
how this happens, you live.
You not only live, you’re remade,
just as rivers are remade by rain,
just as wind is refashioned
by the cool of the night. Just as
bones become stronger
after the break. Just as
a story resists The End.
Just as the notes of a song
can be reused to compose
a new song. Oh sweetheart,
you will not only sing
the new song—a song
equal parts haunting and beautiful—
you will be the new song
and the silence that holds it.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
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