Tag: poetry

Happiness Haiku

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry2 Comments

A listener of happiness author Gretchen Rubin’s  podcast recommended the practice of writing a daily haiku to promote mindfulness…noting the little beauties of each day. What a great idea, in a simple form: 3 lines of verse with 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. It’s quite fun, actually, and worth a try! Here are a few I wrote this morning:

Haiku 1

Morning light floods in

kitchen aflame with brightness

blue sky day begins

Haiku 2

Ring of Queen Anne’s Lace

bursting in my picture frame–

silent fireworks dance

Haiku 3

Sun warms my bare toes…

toddler drags me down the stairs 

delighted to play!

Unworthy

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry1 Comment

There are times I feel unworthy of poetry
incapable of receiving inspiration
cause I’m overly immersed in soap suds and laundry
combing out tangles in hair
and sibling relationships
putting out constant fires
–flashes of jealousy and
fits of frustration so loud
it’s hard to hear the quiet whisper
of a newborn poem
wanting to meet the world

But I need to dismiss these unromantic doubts
because it’s not really about me
Is a candle worthy to illuminate the night?
Yet it is in it’s very disappearing–
that it gives burning light

Your love for me doesn’t depend on my greatness
but is rather a sign of Yours
Fill the empty cup of my heart
to overflowing
Help me exude Your warmth
and be with me
in my noise and chaos

Help me find the whisper of your presence
like flashes of gold in a mountain stream
and amidst all the pebbles
help me find poems

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Little Jo Travels the World

On By Anna EastlandIn motherhood, Poetry, Writing4 Comments

It is with gratitude and bittersweet joy that I can tell you my new poetry book, written in the year after I lost my daughter Josephine in labour, is now available for purchase online at blurb.ca.

unexpected blossoming: a journey of grief and hope

After a year of writing, and a year of creating the book, my friend Rachel (who really made this project happen) and I, after some excellent final editing by my husband James, ordered several boxes of my poetry book. It shipped within three days, on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. There couldn’t have been a more poignant day for me, as I’ve drawn such consolation and hope from her in this journey. I really wanted the book to arrive on time for Josephine’s second birthday, on September 30th, and it came in good time only a week after ordering it. I am so impressed with the self-publishing company Blurb! Emotionally, I needed her birthday gift on time and they delivered.

To celebrate little Jo’s special day, we had an open house book launch, and filled our home with people from 1-5:30 pm. It meant a lot to be surrounded by loving friends and family. My mother and sister-in-law even took the ferry to be here. My amazing friend and midwife Terry-Lyn also came, with a tiny pot of white flowers. This made my day. The hands which held my baby, when so few others have, will always be sacred to me. I know she holds my Jo in her heart as well.

That day we ate goodies and shared stories and sold books. In the few weeks since receiving my boxes of books, 200 have sold or been donated. I had the honour of reading one of my poems at an event for bereaved families on October 14, the evening before international babyloss day. My books were available for any grieving families, counselors, funeral directors or other care workers who were there to take with them.

In a strange twist of fate, it turned out that one of the counselors there, Sarah, is close to a good friend of mine, Katie. She had driven her to my house the day before Josephine’s funeral to deliver the soft white blanket she is wrapped in. Funny how life works.

I am grateful that my little Jo is able to be so active in this world from Heaven. That her special mission to reach out and comfort other moms through my writing is being carried out. That she will be known and remembered. One of the sweetest comments about my book came from a Korean friend in broken English, after having read it, “I didn’t understand all words, but I think your baby very happy. She sees her mama loves her very much.” What more can I ask?

Today I mailed 20 more books, so my little girl is, in her own special way, seeing the world, as her book travels to Calgary, Tofino, Nelson, Saskatoon, Toronto, Rome, Hawaii, and the Philippines. My little shooting star…may she bring sweetness and hope to every heart she shines on.

PS If you know a bereaved mom or family member who may appreciate a book, please let me know in the comments below, or order one from the link above.

 

How blogging helps prevent soul clutter…and house clutter, too!

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry, Writing2 Comments

Half a year ago, as I was busy sorting through my boxes and packing up my house for our move, I found all sorts of precious old papers–boxes of dusty journals that hadn’t seen the light of day for years.

For you see, before I had my blog, writing was a covert operation. Almost nobody was allowed to see my poems. My scribbles were hidden away, safe from scrutiny, safe from the ‘horrific danger’ of being disliked or dismissed.  I’ve grown a little since then, and realized that unshared art is like a silent opera…tons of emotion just burning to be released, but kept in a bottle. It’s worth it to risk people laughing at you, to make it possible for them to cry with you, hope with you, and rejoice with you.

So in honour of the publication of my first book of poetry, I’ve decided to release some of my earlier writings from their solitary confinement and share them with you. Perhaps some sappy love poems from my early days dating my husband, impassioned prayers from my time of conversion to my faith, or other melodramatic outpourings…So if every now and then something appears from “Anna’s archives,” I hope you’ll welcome it kindly and pat it on the head, even if it is a little bit puppy love…

And once I let it live in Crazy Land, I can recycle the original! So it’s all part of my mission to delcutter my house, and by sharing these pieces of me with you, also delcutter my soul. Where is your soul clutter? Is there something inside waiting to be shared? Set it free!

 

Rain Murmurs Gently

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry7 Comments

Rain falls on the gazebo roof
and murmurs gently 
in the surrounding forest

I sit here with the stone lion
who gazes with undivided attention 
into the nearby woods
as if expecting Aslan 

I admire his silence
and try to cultivate interior quiet
attuning my ears to the soft sounds
of bird calls and frog chatter
sounds of my youth
unchanged and immortal

The baby sleeps warmly on my chest
snuggled beneath the nursing cover
I sigh and he echoes me
heart to heart
imitating me even in his sleep

A tiny spider throws his rope onto my iPad 
and hangs out with me while I write
Today even a spider
is delightful 

My first poetry book! “unexpected blossoming: a journey of grief and hope”

On By Anna EastlandIn motherhood, Poetry, Stillbirth, Writing11 Comments

My first poetry book just arrived in the mail! It is dedicated in loving memory of my little daughter Josephine, whom I lost in labour almost two years ago. These poems chronicle my first year after her loss, my grief and love for my baby girl and also the hope I have of one day seeing her again.

Writing has been really therapeutic for me, and helped me give expression to the intense emotions that come with losing a little one. I want to share these poems with other families who have lost babies so that they would know that they are not alone…that others have experienced and survived such a loss. 

I first thought of this project when talking to my friend Anne Schweitzer, who makes “Mother Mary Baskets” for bereaved moms. The baskets contain little comforts like bath salts, lip balm, chocolate, a fancy tea cup, etc as well as a few books on healing and hope after miscarriage. There are also special prayer cards, including one to your baby in Heaven. We thought it would be so nice to include some of my poems in the basket. Now I’ve been able to publish them in a little book, the kind you can carry in your purse and pull out to read in those quiet moments when you have time to release some of the sadness welling up inside. 

Because my main goal is comforting other babyloss moms, every time a copy is sold, another will be donated to a bereaved family. I’d like to reach as many people as possible, so that instead of just an impersonal pamphlet from a hospital, bereaved moms could be given something special, something beautiful, something that honours their love and grief. I hope to donate copies to hospital chaplains, midwives, doctor’s offices, etc, as well as giving them to individual moms. It will be a thoughtful gift for people to give loved ones who lose a baby…something for them to give when they don’t know what to say themselves…

I want to thank my dear friend Rachel Lalonde, who really helped move this project along, taking care of all the technical details and keeping me on track. She also did the delicate rose photographs on the front and back covers which wrap my poems in beauty. I couldn’t have accomplished this without her! And also thank you to my brother Monti, who believed in the value of this little book so much he donated $100 towards the project when it was still just an idea. That very bill will soon be used to order copies to donate!

I’ll keep you posted once my book is available online via the publishing site Blurb, and in the mean time, for anyone near me who’d like a copy, be sure to let me know; when I do a bulk order I’ll be able to save you some shipping costs. It will be a joy to hand it to you!

      

Alluring Emptiness

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry4 Comments

The alluring emptiness of a white page 

free from clutter and electronic distraction,

the peacefulness of a smooth sheet

waiting for my words to gently rest on it…

Oh, how it calls me

in the midst of noise and business!

There, in the silent gaze of the white page,

my soul is free to unfurl its wings

and write with feathered quills

the thoughts that have distilled inside it. 

Oh blessed quiet 

in which to hear the silent whispers of my heart,

to set free the poems

that have been clinging to my fingertips

like small birds awaiting flight.

When you’re a busy mom of seven,

a quiet moment at the bus-stop 

with no wifi 

and only the baby 

becomes rather more entrancing than it used to be…

Hey, I’ll take what I can get! 

  

Mystery and Loss: International Bereaved Mother’s Day

On By Anna EastlandIn Friendship, Ponderings, Stillbirth4 Comments

So for some reason things were hitting me harder than usual this week, and my perceptive friend noticed and decided a mommy date was in order. Some time to decompress. So we both arranged babysitters (small miracle) and took off to a fancy part of town to have tea and scones at a classy café. Creamy earl grey tea and a heart shaped cheese scone with Devonshire cream and raspberry jam. Very civilized!

We settled in our cosy wicker basket seats by the window to talk. After some chit chat we got into discussing the mystery of suffering. I say mystery not problem, because as philosophers explain, problems are things that can be fixed, like a broken clock, while mysteries are things to be entered into. The heart cannot be fixed simply by turning certain screws or thinking certain thoughts. Some wounds remain forever…not in the sense of being deadly, but in the sense of forever transforming a person’s heart. 

 Having both experienced deep suffering and loss, we agreed that there is really no answer to the “problem” of suffering….in the sense of a solution that makes it all go away or become fine. To treat sorrow as a problem to be fixed is to trivialize grief. Sometimes the worst thing a person can do is to try to make it all better by explaining it away or giving little pat answers to the great mystery of suffering. 

The pain of losing someone (a child, a spouse, a best friend), is not something that needs minimized with band-aide phrases meant to make you feel better. Instead, suffering needs to be entered into, acknowledged, faced. So my sweet friend, noticing me a little discouraged, suggested a visit to my little Jo. We hadn’t been to the graveyard to see her since we moved, and I was feeling it. After our tea we bought her the prettiest little pot of flowers we could find, did some therapeutic window shopping, and got take-out to go have a picnic with her. 

  

I told my friend, as we sat with my little daughter, sleeping beneath her flowers, about a poem I had written shortly before she was stillborn, back in those innocent days when I had no idea what was going to happen. It was called “Mama’s waiting to hold you.” Of course it hurts to read it. But there’s a kind of prayer at the end, which I do feel was answered, just in a radically different way than I expected. I ask that my daughter be blessed, and through her for God to bless the world. 

You could say, “How awful, how ironic…” but I don’t think of it this way. I feel she is very blessed…very safe, happy, free from any sadness or danger…that she is glowing like a little jewel in the Heavens, and so fully her little sweet self. And I know that she has brought many blessings, and continues to touch many lives. She continually transforms me, and helps my heart to grow. 

It is hard not to have her with me in my arms. But …

There are no shadows

Without the sun,

No darkness of the cross falling upon my soul

Without the brilliance of glory

Shining behind it,

Awaiting me

With hidden brightness…



There is mystery. There is sorrow. There is hope. I cannot explain it. I can only embrace it, and do so strengthened by the love of those people willing to share this journey with me. To all who do so, thank you.