The management of grief

I have no right to grieve. I am being selfish. They are in a better place than me.

Still, I walk out into the water and hope. Standing there, the water feels warm. I could dive in and go to them. Join Satish and my girl wherever they are. But I cannot, Pam needs me.

We came to Ireland to identify the bodies they found, but decided to spend the day by the coast where the plane went down. The Irish are good people. They hug us, shed their tears with us, give us flowers, and comfort us. Satish was one of the people they found.

I walk back towards where Shaila is standing. Poor, Shaila. She has lost her whole family, and husband and two sons. I don't know how she has stayed to calm through all of this. Shaila has brought things for her boys, and a poem for her husband. I have brought hope and despair. Why does God give us so much if all along he intends to take it away?

How does one describe how they feel? The greif is so overwhelming when you lose someone you love so much. To lose someone you planned your life with is reason to want to die. To lose a child is unbearable. Why did good people have to die? Why does someone so innocent and beautiful have to be taken away from us? I have so many questions, and no answers.

"The water felt warm, Shaila," I tell her.

"You can't," she says. "We have to wait for our turn to come."

She is right. I know she is right. My swami tells me depression is a sign of selfishness. That I should not grieve, but rejoice for they are in a better place. Perhaps I am being selfish.

Still, I look out at the waters and hope. I hope to see my love walking back to me with girl holding his hand. I hope to hear a song.

Response to "An Ounce of cure"

The title, "An Ounce of Cure," is a reference to the common saying, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." The saying states that taking care of a problem earlier is much easier than delaying to take care of a problem that may get worse later. In this case, Munroe does not try to seek help until she suffers from an extraordinarily embarrassing situation. Instead, Munroe tries to solve her problems by drinking which, unfortunately, is what many people in society do. She tries to cure her problems with an ounce of alcohol, but instead makes her problem many times worse. Although Munroe was put through a difficult situation, she does learn from her mistakes and does eventually get over her depression from being dumped. Munroe shows us that we can get though the worst of situation and fix any problem regardless of how bad it can get.

Winter Blues

The world has turned into a land
With no more sea, and no more sand,
Nothing but ice, nothing but cold,
Where have gone the warm days of old?

The birds have all took off and fled,
As we watch the skies, filled with dread,
For days that will come soon to pass
Where we must shovel, not cut the grass.

It takes more time to move around
And where we go, "Crunch!" is the sound.
We plan next year to take a trip
Watch out! The ice! Slow down! Don't slip!

Now on my back I see the sky,
Gaze up with pain and wonder why
The sun shines bright, yet its so cold!
Where have gone the warm days of old?

This poem is iambic tetra meter. There are rhymes;
1. land, sand, cold, old, fled, dread ('d' sounds are repeated)
2. pass, grass ('s' sounds are repeated)
3. around, sound ('d' sounds are repeated)
4. trip, slip ('ip' sounds are repeated)
5. sky, why (y' sounds are repeated)
6. cold, old ('d' sounds are repeated)

Response to “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

‘Happy Endings’ is written by Margaret Atwood. There are six different scenes in this story. We assume that most stories have happy endings or sad endings. But, this short story has both happy and sad endings. After reading this story, we gain sympathy for the many problems people face in relationships.
Happy Endings arouse the reader’s curiosity. As you can see in the beginning part of this short story, Margaret Atwood is asking you, “What happens next?” Through this question, Atwood recreates each scene with a different plot. Some plots can satisfy reader’s curiosity, while others repel them. Each scene in Happy Endings has same ending, where both John and Mary die whether they end up loving each other or not. Atwood is not delicate when describing each scene, sometimes using coarse language and vulgar behaviour. Atwood also leaves some scenes to the reader’s imagination. But I do not agree with the title. All endings are sad ending since both John and Mary die, but why does Atwood title the short story as ‘Happy Endings’? If the lives of John and Mary’s were happy, the title would make sense, but excluding plot A, the lives of John and Mary were not happy ones. This suggests a sarcastic title.

Creative city

Creative City
By. Pier Giorgio Di Cicco

To look, and not avert one's gaze;
that is where all the art is, the passion
and the city. people who do not look,
cannot see canvas, or poems or
notes for
happiness.
art does not begin with art,
but in the eyes. the eyes are everything;
when you look up at another,
and look away without a smile,
you have killed
everything you want to
bring home, oh citizen.

comments on Kelly's poem

I came upon this man one day
Quite flushed as he did come to me
He yelled, a place we shall soon go
With cold, fierce bears, strange talk we’ll see!

With bears, you say, what else is there?
My word, I’ll tell, need not to fret
The winds, the snow, with more I think
No fruit, they’ll eat whale fat I bet!

Your right, dear friend, no yum for them
A house of ice where ‘nucks are born
Their schools, absurd, teach a to zed
Big great igloos I could have sworn

When ice does melt, the whales go dry
Despite the ice, the snow remains
For all these meals they’ll eat flapjacks
So much syrup I’d go insane!



Young man, where lies this cold dark place?
This pic does seem just north of here
You’re nuts, photos, postcards, that’s all?
Foolish, I say, you’ve never been near!

Flurry of snow (sensory poem)

Flurry of snow
By. Elisabeth Jang

The dead tree, hard rock,
Cherry tree, apricot tree, and maidenhair tree
Can bloom soft magnolia

Benches are empty for a long time
Lonely, cold, and unattended
The snow hugs them, soft and warm

People become a walking tree
Attracting white flowers to head and shoulders
Walking around the city of white

Explore the four seasons (viator forns)

Explore the four seasons
By. Elisabeth Jang

The seasons change our lives
New lives are coming up from the deep and dark world
They feel heavy in the dark, they need warmth
Flowers open their beauty.

Earth is going to be hot
The seasons change our lives
This time is good for water sports
This is the best way to get out of the hot air.

If autumn comes, I want to leave the darkness
Although nobody waits for me, my mind opens to the blue sky
The seasons change our lives
I hope to visit colourful mountains.

There is a hole in the sky, snow is falling down and deep
Children sliding down the snow in a sleigh
Children’s laughter is still ringing on and on
The seasons change our lives

Canadian identity

Harmony
Elisabeth Jang

Different appearance
Different skin colour
Different language
Nothing can make a gap between us

Different cultures made one country
Different cultures made one identity
If different cultures are a tree,
Understanding cultures are a forest

We are not different
Our appearance keeps us separate from each other
We are one
Our soul keeps us in harmony

Night Train to Zagreb

Night Train to Zagreb
George Ellenbogen

When gusts spread against the glass
on the Orient Express to Zagreb
snow separates in alphabet,
the vowels clinging to glass,
consonants slipping into drifts.

It must be this way for the howl
to flatten a summons against the pane,
the moaning against the arms
of night pushing it beneath
unbroken meters of the train.

Inside one hand reaches for coffee,
the other sleeve reaches the table
armless, turning in circles
like a pendulum raising questions
as the train turns through the foothills.

It was a Serb. Or was it a Croat?
who came out of a night like this
with candlesticks, something in a bag
and she was there, something
between the doorway and road

or was it the bedroom and kitchen?
And he lowered to her as if
to leave something behind, a kiss
or something more memorable—we
always misunderstand—and her arm

was in the snow, possibly on a night
like this with less to understand
than ice caking on glass
over a broken toothed moan
in alphabet that never shapes.

The Word on Cootes Paradise

The Word on Cootes Paradise
Jeffery Donaldson

The Word on Cootes Paradise

The bay was called Cootes Paradise after
an Englishman named Coote. A foot-wide path
loses the last, stone-grey, staggered roof-tops
with a casual turn and does not fold back

until across the break it stands in clear
prospect of Arcadia. Below the hills,
the thumb of a small lake might seem to press
(from where a passing coot circles above)

into the soft dough of the wood, rising
on three sides around it, lightly crusted
and browned by the November fallen leaves.

The pond-side gathers debris like tea-bract
at the brim, glinting ciphers from the stirred
duff and sediment that I have come to read.

A sudden night frost has dropped in the bay
a clear, brittle patina, an ice-skin
that puckers on the water, where the coot
now circles down, goes out and prints its name

with dibbled steps in the snow and flies off.
That sheen over the bay's black element,
for a while, will brace the morning's flurry
where it fell, and rose winded like cold down.

But by noon the ice will have long darkened
to lake-blues, and the mild light will sop up
the nervous, scrawling, dotty signature

of our English migrator, long gone,
who anyway always made it a practise,
so the word goes, not to walk on water.