I love words and rhythm, so it’s probably not much of a surprise that I fall swiftly into the arms of poetry, read, and swoon.

On Becky in Burma, I used to post some of my work, but after learning some literary magazines consider that publication (and many magazines won’t accept previously published work), I took them promptly down.

Though I will not share any of my poetry with you, I do want to share a poem that I often return to for strength. Many of you are also going through a divorce, a separation, or are single. My hope is that this gives you some hope for the future, too.

A WOMAN ALONE
By Denise Levertov (one of my most favorite poets … ever)

When she cannot be sure
which of two lovers it was with whom she felt
this or that moment of pleasure, of something fiery
streaking from head to heels, the way the white
flame of a cascade streaks a mountainside
seen from a car across the valley, the car
changing gear, skirting a precipice,
climbing…
When she can sit or walk for hours after a movie
talking earnestly and with bursts of laughter
with friends, without worrying
that it’s late, dinner at midnight, her time
spent without counting the change …
When half of her bed is covered with books
and no one is kept awake by the reading light
and she disconnects the phone, to sleep till noon…
Then
selfpity dries up, a joy
untainted by guilt lifts her.
She has fears, but not about loneliness;
fears about how to deal with the aging
of her body-how to deal
with photographs and the mirror. She feels
so much younger and more beautiful
than she looks. At her happiest
-or even in the midst of
some less than joyful hour, sweating
patiently through a heatwave in the city
or hearing the sparrows at daybreak, dully gray,
toneless, the sound of fatigue-
a kind of sober euphoria makes her believe
in her future as an old woman, a wanderer,
seamed and brown,
little luxuries of the middle of life all gone,
watching cities and rivers, people and mountains,
without being watched; not grim nor sad,
an old winedrinking woman, who knows
the old roads, grass-grown, and laughs to herself…
She knows it can’t be:
that’s Mrs.Doasyouwouldbedoneby from
                                                                  The Water-Babies,
no one can walk the world any more,
a world of fumes and decibels.
But she thinks maybe
she could get to be tough and wise, some way,
anyway. Now at least
she is past the time of mourning,
now she can say without shame or deciet,
O blessed Solitude.