Grieving - Ampersand Duck ( Caren Florance)

Linen Hankie with solvent release text, vintage cotton thread. Poem by Rosemary Dobson, from the Ampersand Duck volume “Poems to Hold or Let Go” (2009)


Friends die one after another;
Each time a dark disorder
A ceaseless banging of shutters

Upstairs there in the mind;
Bearing of angry loud weather
Days, nights together

To force on the mind order:
Journeys taken on maps,
Attentive delving into

The roots of the language.
A search for the true invention
Of form by line in drawing.

Also, renewal of linen—
Keeping the old customs
Putting sides to middles.

Thus, mind and hand stilled
And with a gentler grief
To draw down the blind

The white holland blind
Like a banner of love
Against that wild confusion