The Promise

A poem about finite grief.

We move through grief as if it has no edge, no ending, no bottom we might one day reach. This comes from knowing the body is temporary, from experiencing decay not as an idea but as a promise written into us, and from fearing that sorrow follows the same law of permanence that pain often seems to possess. Sadness can so easily make itself feel infinite. To me, this poem is about the tension between mortality and release: to live is to carry both ruin and tenderness in the same body. Even in a world shaped by loss, tears do not fall forever.

I wrote this poem in the generative workshop with Chen Chen, organised by Gather. It was a very enjoyable experience.

“Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”— William Wordsworth (Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood)

The Promise

The weather keeps shifting,
the sun careless in its shining,
the sky growing dark, its tears
slipping down its face— 
tears that are never spent.

I have been given a promise
of decay.

My body is not the moon,
meant to shine forever
through its weathered face,
nor is it the sun
to warm your face.

One day
my tears will be spent
and will no longer soak
the ground where I stand.

How am I meant to remain
sad without end,
when not everything
is destined for decay?

Miriam H. Monarres

Photo by Congerdesign.

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Love,

Miriam