I wrote the poem Come to me as a Butterfly in August 2009, just a few months after Emma died. I had been writing pretty much daily in a journal, recording emotions, questions; tracking what helped and didn't help; and, in a way, just checking my pulse. The daily entries were a testament to the fact that I had survived another day.
It was around August that I began to feel compelled to find some meaning in these daily musings/rants and poetry became my medium. I had never written poetry before, so I'm still not sure why I reached for it then. Looking back, I think it was symbolic of where I was in my grieving: finding meaning and connection in signs and symbols and stories, but not in ways that could be coherently articulated through prose. Poetry allowed me to organize the jumble of ideas and emotions in my head, even if I was still not able to make sense of them.
Poetry also gave me a sense of connection to and empathy for Emma. I am not a poet, a conclusion you have surely come to on your own, but Emma was. As I was going through my poetry phase, I wondered what meaning was hidden in the fact that Emma liked to write poetry. Was poetry a crutch for Emma, just as it had become for me? Was her poetic flair really a reflection of deep unconquerable despair? Did she grasp at poetry to try gain control over jumbled thoughts and emotions, just as I was?
These are not questions with answers, just raw material - unanswerable questions to be noted, cataloged, and tucked away in the orderly stanzas of a poem that can tidy up the messiest parts of life.
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