Sitting with Pain

This is where you sit with the pain,
in the ancient windsor chair,
dark and worn as your heart,
a still place, comfortable

with no distractions,
a place to sit silently
as the afternoon fades to night,
and feel the pinpricks

of where you have failed
yourself and others, of where
you have been failed and underheard, where
your tears cannot keep up with your pain.

You are alone here,
as it should be,
for this pain is yours alone,
no one elses to bear or survive, yours
to feel and then let go,

to disappear into the falling night,
as you light one small candle,
sharp and bright,
to remind you of the morning,
until it comes.

About this poem

For the past few days I have been doing part of something called the Black and White Challenge with a group of creative friends. I sort of took it on myself to also write a poem on some of the pictures, and this is one.

Counselors and therapists often say we have to sit with our pain to get to a healing place, that we should not stuff it, or pretend it is not there, or lash out, but allow ourselves to feel it, and when we discover it will not kill us, and that we can survived, only then can we let it go.

Those two things combined to make this poem.

The picture was shot at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Virginia.

Tom