Lament is a song too.
Of deep notes and chords
hung aloft in the still air.
Reverberating,
like the bells that call
us to bend low
in prayer.
To listen.
I could not sing without
the depth of feeling
drawn from loss and longing.
It’s echoing.
You ask me to sing,
and I’ll tell you I only heed
what I hear.
The earth’s stirring.
The high soft notes,
are gone as swift as joy flies.
Yes, yes we need its returning.
But the interval between?
Cannot you hear her breathing?
We give her voice by hearing.
Loss, this long, resonating chord.
Broken in the middle.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
July 2020
‘In the season of Matariki it is customary to name those who have passed away during the year. Their spirits are gathered to the stars and remain in the care of Pōhutukawa.’
~ Aotearoa Seasons
Living Tree Poetry 
Beautiful. Sometimes we stifle our laments and make ourselves sick.
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Oh, we do as one of the chaplains at work said today, he remembered a theologian he knew once saying, ‘the world has forgotten how to lament’. I say, not the poets.
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