Community Poem: February.

After the loss of our children, we hear advice from every corner of our world about how to soothe our broken spirits and calm our grief-stricken selves. They come from our midwives or doctors, our therapists, our parents, our friends, even the little voice in our heads:

Go to counseling.
Join a grief group.
Read this book.
Don't wallow.


It is painful at times. Comforting at others. I remember thinking that if I could take each piece of advice and put it into a huge standing mixer, I would be able to bake a kind of Grief Cake. I thought this month we could each submit ONE command sentence to make a kind of Recipe of Survival. It can be either the best or worst advice you were given, or something that got you through a tough moment, or something you would like to give someone else suffering. I envision this to be actions written like the above in italics, as a command. Sort of like a recipe is written, or a how to manual. I just want to see the litany of advice we can come up with, perhaps it will be grotesque or beautifully compassionate. Please write the sentence as an action or command, even if it is Sit there.

You can either submit the line via the comment section of this post (and this post only.) Or send the sentence to stilllife365days (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject Community Poem. I am asking that each person only submit one sentence by January 30th. I hope this turns out as cool as I imagine it to be in my head. March, I am hoping to do something more visual for a community art piece. Stay tuned.