Posted on February 26, 2025 by Jenn Zatopek

THE STARK BEAUTY OF GRIEF

I love the stark beauty of winter–
how trees brighten and empty themselves,
how grasses, once deliciously green,
are spun into gold by the warmth of the friendly sun.

I want to have a thousand uses like this–
to allow old pain to turn into something glorious
like animals might feast on in the triumph of snow.
They came to visit me yesterday before the thunder,
sparrows and red birds, wrens and north winds,
the squirrel peering at me through the window,
the house finch hovering just outside the glass,
as if to say: 

Your pain is a gift, the key to your transformation,
like the acorns that split wide to become oak trees,
like the biting winds heralding winter storms,
which bathe our land in the newness of rain,
which dust the ground with snow as needed as breath
healing everything in nourishing silence.

Your grief, the world says, is the key to your transformation.
Without grief’s cold and lingering touch,
there would be no spring;
without the heart breaking open
there would be no miracle,
no movement toward the light.

Image: Bull of the Woods trail, Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico