If you can’t see a silver lining,
turn things inside out.
Wash them with hope filled abandon,
hang them in the sun.
Let the wind whip them loose and
release them of their weights.
Gather them dry and soft,
hold them close to heart.
Place your face deep in,
and smell the residue of breeze.
And see how the sunlight
has left its mark
in a silver threaded hem.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
July 2020
“Time and reflection change the sight little by little ’till we come to understand.”
~ Paul Cezanne
The whole thing starts with a single knot
and needles. A word and pen. Tie a loop
in nothing. Look at it. Cast on, repeat
the procedure till you have a line
that you can work with.
It’s a pattern made of relation alone,
my patience, my rhythm, till empty bights
create a fabric that can be worn,
if you’re lucky and practised. It’s never
too late
to pick up dropped stitches…
~ Gwyneth Lewis
(from “How to Knit a Poem”)
Living Tree Poetry 
I love this. I live not far from the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson whose poem about the turning of his terrible grief from his wife’s death is where every cloud has a silver lining came from. It was the fashion, craft of the time to enclose a lock of childrens’ hair in wax and his wife was doing that when her clothing caught on fire and she died. Months later he saw a heavy gray cloud and then it turned and had a silver lining — or so this is how the story goes.
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What a bittersweet beautiful story Maren, thank you for sharing and making this page even more resonant with this gift of silver linings xx
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