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In these poems, Diane Mintz struggles to restore herself to life after the death of her son. Grief is the other side of love and no amount of will can forestall its cascade of exquisite pain. Through the process of writing these poems, allowing grief to take its toll, slowly she begins to feel the pulse of life again.
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From Ode to Life
I stay alive for the children — the newborns,
the adolescents, the teenagers, the lost and the
searching, the groping and the yearning — who will
inherit our gorgeous and broken world. I wish them
luck and forbearance.
I stay alive to honor you my dear son. You who loved
so deeply. I am keeping your love for life alive.
May your memory live on.
Published by author Diane Mintz in association with Fearless Literary
72 pages, trade paperback • $8.95 print / $5.95 digital • ISBN 979-8-234-04322-1
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DIANE MINTZ was born in Newark, New Jersey where she lived until her family moved to California when she was 9. With the exception of graduate school and travel, she has spent her adult life in Berkeley where she got her B.A. from UC Berkeley and raised her two sons. She has worked as a teacher, an editor, a translator, a secretary, a newspaper reporter and a realtor (while founding a nonprofit, YESfamilies.org), all while stashing her writings in drawers. This is her second volume of poetry, following About Time (2023).
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You Are
There are days on end when I let you rest
curled up inside our memories of you.
Other days you are so present that disbelief
dominates: you refuse to lie still in your grave.
You are with me yet and I hold on lest oblivion
take your ready wit, the warmth of your hug.
I would not want you to recede into the shadows,
into that place where only dreams can touch you.
You are part of me. Before your birth and after
your death I hold you, shameless in the love
I keep safe and will not relinquish to the past.
You are not forgotten, my love.
I rage against the dying of your light.
Words
To help tame strong feelings,
we tell kids to use their words.
We trust that words can define
and contain the power of emotions.It is as though feelings cannot be fierce
enough to rip through the cage of words
and run wild through space and time.As though the memory of you could not
penetrate all pretense of calm. There are
no words powerful enough to describe
the searing pain of the presence of your absence.
Latter Days
At last yearning ends.
Acceptance beats in its new,
soft heart and clears the
way to moments of pure joy.
It is a revelation coming
so late in life. Sweeter
now for the years of self-
inflicted struggles, hurt
and tangled thoughts
now quieted and replaced
by nothing noteworthy,
only the peace of knowing,
of feeling the pull of small
necessities: to trim the hedge,
to boil the potatoes, to walk the dog,
and to end each day at your side.
