A poem for the grieving
What could be draws near: now here, now whole,
now mess, now melt, now gone. Cold wind blows
over warmer water, churns up moisture, curls
and crops each liquid drop to crystal, ready to fall
when cloud scrapes cross some highest hill and spills.
Christ spent an evening splitting atoms for this,
so many ribs and lungs and livers. We all shiver.
The snow falls on the old and the young. I’m tired
of watching the yard fill with these precise bright
jagged unique crisp wisps, now here, now whole,
now mess, now melt, now gone.
Snow on snow on snow on snow on snow.
I don’t know how the houses hold the weight.
The flakes accumulate on every blinking light
and yet stay lit. How brief their glow.
Published by Sarah M. Wells
Sarah M. Wells is an award-winning author of seven books: To Say One Million Times, WOW: Essays on Awe, Faith, and Family from America's Great Outdoors (and Some Hotel Rooms) - forthcoming in 2026, Ordinary Time: Meditations from the In-Between (2024), The Family Bible Devotional: Stories from the Gospels to Help Kids and Parents Love God and Love Others (2022), American Honey: A Field Guide to Resisting Temptation (2021), Between the Heron and the Moss (2020), The Family Bible Devotional: Stories from the Bible to Help Kids and Parents Engage and Love Scripture (2018), and Pruning Burning Bushes (2012). Sarah's work has been honored with four Pushcart Prize nominations, and her essays have appeared in the notable essays list in the Best American Essays 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018.
Sarah is the recipient of a 2018 Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. She resides in Ashland, Ohio with her husband and three children.
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Sarah Marie Wells 