Katherine Billings Palmer

A Grieving Heart: Poems of Love, Loss, and Healing for Widows and Widowers is a compilation of poetry about working through grief and loss, overcoming obstacles, creating new goals, and pursuing a new plan for a future alone.

It’s available on Amazon in paperback, hard cover, and Kindle versions, and at BarnesandNoble.com.

From the author of the Widow’s Words series, comes a book of poetry about coping with life in the years following the loss of a spouse. It contains 65 heartfelt poems written during the many stages of grief and survival after losing one’s partner. The poetry begins in first days after her husband's death and follows her journey for several years as she learns to maneuver life on her own.

BENEATH THE SURFACE

Beneath the surface, the pain waits

For the waves of movement to stop
For your flurry of activity to slow
For the churning waters of your busy life to settle

The life you were so proud of recreating from the ashes

Beneath the surface, the pain waits
For the quiet times,
The peaceful times
When life is lovely and your mind is still

And you pause to think and remember

Beneath the surface, the pain waits
For the trigger
The notes of a song
The sight of a place you used to go together
A glimpse of a photo

The burst of a memory that shoots like a star into your mind

And the lovely world you created
Crumbles
And
Quakes

And those peaceful times
When you think perhaps you’ve made it through the storm
Are revealed to be the lie that they are

And the pain invades and overwhelms
So you pull out the tissues and you grit your teeth
And succumb to it for a little while

He’s never coming back
He’s never coming back

And you pick up the pieces and start again

You live
You laugh
You love
You embrace the day

Without him

The fog lifts and life goes on

But you know that beneath the surface, the pain waits

And in the midst of all you’ve gained
You’ll be reminded of all you’ve lost

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

PRACTICAL MAGIC

I wish I could
work magic
How amazing that would be

I’d wave my wand and say
Shazam!
and bring you back to me

I wish I was
a sorceress
with powers beyond time

I’d travel back
a dozen years
to when I called you mine

I wish I owned
a spellbook
with death-defying powers

I’d use them to
breathe life into
the love that once was ours

But I can’t
practice magic
I’ve no secrets from above

I’m just a
mortal woman
yearning for the man I love

A Grieving Heart: Poems of Love, Loss, and Healing for Widows and Widowers is a compilation of poetry about working through grief and loss, overcoming obstacles, creating new goals, and pursuing a new plan for a future alone.