Community Poem: July

Death has so many euphemisms-- passed away, crossed over, resting in peace, departed, perished--to name a few. Particularly in the blogging community, one reads the entire gamut of word choices depending on faith, or lack thereof, or disposition simply by reading one's bloglist. But one that is used often is loss/lost. It is controversial. Let's face it, our children are anything but lost. We know, sadly, exactly where they are. Always. But I use it. A lot. I use it not because my daughter is lost, but because sometimes I feel lost and I feel the acuteness of loss and I have had so many losses after the death of my daughter. The word 'babylost' is mysterious, curious and special to me. The first time I read it, I thought, "Yes, that is me. I am babylost. I am lost without my baby. I am on a babylost bender."

This month's community poem is about all our losses. I usually don't post the title, but this month, the title will be, "What We Lost." Each person is asked to write about ONE thing you lost after the death of your child. Please try not to use your child's name, or specifics, like sex, etc. I try to integrate these lines to make one unified poem. This poem is going to be different in that the style is your choosing. It can be a word, a haiku, a couplet, a stanza (please no longer than one stanza), but try to keep it to ONE loss, if that makes sense. I have no idea how this will pan out in the end, but I think it would be cool to have a mishmash of styles, words and elements, because to me the chaos is part of loss too.

If you have any questions, please direct it to the comment section of this post. All contributions should be emailed to stilllife365days@gmail.com in by June 30th.