Wild Court

An international poetry journal based in the English Department of King’s College London

‘Grief is like a miracle’: a poem by Helen Calcutt

 
 

    Grief is like a miracle

 

like opening your mouth for water, and finding rain.
You stand for days outside the body of a silent church.
Snow touches the stillness of the windows and
you long for their acceptance, a few tears.
You tell yourself the door isn’t closed:
it’s open and weeping. Like the orange rose
that never bloomed all Spring
then one day in Autumn         opened atriums of colour.
Now all the roses gather and the door
is open-armed. People think I’m strange
touching my lips to the wood, but
ice is thawing to love inside my body:
I don’t know how else to show my gratitude.

 
 

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Author:

Helen Calcutt

Helen is the author of two volumes of poetry: ‘Sudden rainfall’ (Perdika Press, 2014), a PBS Pamphlet Choice, and ‘Unable Mother’ (V.Press, 2018). Her poetry and critical writing features in the Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Brooklyn Review, Poetry London, Poetry Scotland, and The London Magazine, among many others. She is creator and editor of acclaimed poetry anthology ‘Eighty-Four’ (Verve Poetry, 2019) in aid of the leading suicide prevention charity CALM. It was shortlisted for the Saboteur Awards, Best Anthology, 2019, and was a Poetry Wales Book of the Year, 2019. Helen is a visiting lecturer in Creative Writing at Loughborough University, and works as a writing tutor for organisations including The Poetry School, N.A.W.E and Writing West Midlands. Her new pamphlet will be published by Verve Poetry Press in autumn 2020.