“How To Speak Love In A Storm?”
By Stewart Henderson
How to speak love in a storm?
depends on the substance of the voice,
as the trees rage
and roof tiles smash,
where seagulls are grounded
and there is only chaos.
How to speak love in a storm?
is to put up a signpost for the lost,
as on the bitter hillside
you lie murmuring,
‘Why is this happening now?’
Exposure, like a fox,
circling your lamb’s heart.
How to speak love in a storm?
means finding the right inflection.
Not offering words and hollow prayers
but walking backwards with you
into your abandoned years.
I had lost weight. Not a lot but enough that I routinely heard from friends how “great” I looked. How disorienting. I was in agony, my heart literally ached (never had the phrase “broken heart” felt so visceral). I could manage to swallow only a couple of bites of toast, a handful of dry cereal. I became thin. Then thinner. Down one size, then two, then another.
To the world, I looked “great.”
Being rewarded for being in pain is a strange thing. Of course, in the case of betrayal, the world doesn’t know, not even your closest friends unless you’ve told them, unless they pay particular attention to how a smile never reaches your eyes, unless they notice that you’re not just “thin,” you’re hollow.
What other conclusion can you draw except that your pain is invisible? The only one who sees the trees raging, the roof tiles smashing, the grounded gulls … is you.
Perhaps also your spouse, if he stuck around. If you allowed him to stick around. If he’s repentant, attuned to the pain he’s caused.
But, mostly, you realize this is a storm you’re weathering yourself.
Which is why the final sentence of Stewart Henderson’s poem holds such power. How to speak love in a storm? You speak it to yourself the way only you can. In whispers. In gentle words. In silence but with a soft hand at the small of your back. “You will survive this,” you assure yourself. Not hollow words at all but the truth. You will survive this. Recognizing the abandonment by him but also, probably, by yourself. But not anymore. Now you are travelling backwards to retrieve that forgotten you, to remind her of her worth, her beauty, her wisdom. To weather this new storm together.