I'll read one more poem about that time in my life,
and it will explain how this book got built.
"After You Toss Around the Ashes."
When she was dying, it was impossible to see forward
to the next minute.
What was happening-- for whole weeks--
was all that was happening and happening and happening.
Months before that, I got the dumb soup wrong.
How awful.
It was all she wanted, and I had gotten it wrong.
Then, in the airless days when it was really happening,
we started to power panic that we didn't know enough.
What should we do with her ashes?
Water or dirt.
Once, she just asked to be thrown
into the river where we used to go, still alive
but not living anymore.
After it was done, I couldn't go back to my life.
You understand, right?
It wasn't the same.
I couldn't tell if I loved myself more or less.
It wasn't until later, when I moved in with him
and stood outside on our patchy imperfect lawn, that I
remembered what had been circling inside me.
I am beautiful.
I am full of love.
I am dying.
That poem is particularly about the paradigm shift
that happens in your life when you lose someone close
and how it makes you rethink everything.
And for me, it just made me commit more
to love and life and living and poetry.