request and poem

[bitsofbeauty]

A dear friend has been in a dark place for far too long and it seems to be getting worse. She's lost, lonely and hopeless to the critical point of considering suicide. Poems to validate her feelings so she feels less alone as well as poems of hopefullness and beauty (basically anything you think might be helpful) would be greatly appreciated. And

Comments

[gamesiplay]

I don't know if this is a little too on the nose, but this poem has meant a lot to me in similar situations.

Wait
by Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total

[drabheathen]

I was just going to post this. One of my favorites.

[exceptindreams]

I was going to post this. Great poem.

[crimsnfirestorm]

Here are some of the many poems that Got Me Through It

Hafiz

[moonglows]

Your Mother And My Mother
Hafiz

Fear is the cheapest room in the house
I would like to see you living
In better conditions,

for your mother and my mother
Were friends.

I know the Innkeeper
In this part of the universe.
Get some rest tonight,
Come to my verse tomorrow.
We’ll go speak to the Friend together.

I should not make any promises right now,
But I know if you
Pray
Somewhere in this world-
Something good will happen.

God wants to see
More love and playfulness in your eyes
For that is your greatest witness to Him.

Your soul and my soul
Once sat together in the Beloved’s womb
Playing footsie.

Your heart and my heart
are very, very old
Friends.

[sapience]

I know this may seem a bit silly, but an '80s pop song helped me to get through my first experience with that darkness:

There is nothing fair in this world
There is nothing safe in this world
There is nothing sure in this world
There is nothing pure in this world
But if there's something left in this world
Start again

It's a nice day for a white wedding
It's a nice day to start again

- Billy Idol, "White Wedding"

[equality_72521]

"Wild Geese"
Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

[puppytraining]

Love this poem - very fitting.