Intimate Loss: Grieving a Lover

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The loss of a lover represents the most intimate and personal of all losses, one that people rarely discuss even in grief groups or therapy sessions. Through Pablo Neruda's powerful love poems, we explore how poetry can give voice to the unique grief of losing a romantic partner and provide comfort for those experiencing this particular type of loss.

• Grief differs across various types of losses, requiring different approaches beyond a one-size-fits-all solution
• The intimate nature of losing a lover creates unique challenges in sharing and processing this grief
• Pablo Neruda's Nobel Prize-winning poetry offers powerful language that captures the experience of mourning a lost love
• Poetry provides a way to express complex feelings of absence, continuing bonds, and the contradictory emotions that characterize romantic grief

Remember I'm always available for spiritual direction by Zoom to those who are grieving.

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Episode Transcript

CANDEE (00:18):
Welcome back to Solace: Soul Plus + Grief.
I'm Candee Lucas, your host.
I'm a grief chaplain.
When we started this ministryalmost five years ago, we hoped
to help those who are grievingin various ways, various
different losses, understandingthat a one-size-fits-all is not

(00:43):
always the best routine.
So these podcasts offerdifferent themes, different
techniques, different ways ofgrieving, different ways of
mourning and sharing theintimacy, the immediacy of your
loss as you continue on your owngrief journey and weave that

(01:10):
loss into the fabric of yourlife.
You're always welcome in ourcircle of healing, love and
support.

(01:31):
The loss of a lover is the mostintimate and personal of all
losses, one that we rarely speakabout, even in our grief groups
, even to our therapists, evento those who help us grieve,

(01:52):
because it's so intimate, sopersonal.
So today I offer these poemsfrom Pablo Neruda to address the
loss of a lover.
The following is a series oflove poems from Pablo Neruda, a

(02:19):
20th century Chilean poet whowon the Nobel Prize in the 70s.
These poems are particularlypoignant and are in memory of a
lost love, things which many ofus struggle with, sometimes

(02:43):
immediately, sometimes inanticipation of death and
throughout the years after we'velost our loved one.
It's called Tonight I.
I Can Write--Tonight Tonight, ICan Write the saddest lines.
Write, for example the night isstarry and the stars are blue

(03:07):
and shiver in the distance.
The night wind revolves in thesky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddestlines.
I loved you and sometimes youloved me too.
Through nights like this one, Iheld you in my arms, I kissed
you again and again under theendless sky.

(03:28):
You loved me.
Sometimes I loved you too.
How could one not have lovedyour great still eyes?
Tonight I can write the saddestlines To think that I do not
have you, to feel that I havelost you, to hear the immense

(03:48):
night, still more immensewithout you, and the verse falls
to the soul like dew in thepasture.
What does it matter that mylove could not keep you?
The night is starry and you arenot with me.

(04:12):
This is all In the distance.
Someone is singing In thedistance.
soul is not satisfied that ithas lost you.
My sight tries to find you, asthough to bring you closer.
My heart looks for you and youare not with me.

(04:34):
The same night, whitening thesame trees.
We of that time are no longerthe same.
I no longer love you, that'scertain.
But how I loved you.
My voice tried to find the wind, to touch your hearing.

(04:55):
Another's, you will beanother's, and you were as you
were before my kisses, yourvoice, your body, your infinite
eyes.
I no longer love you, that'scertain.
But maybe I love you.

(05:18):
Love is so short, forgetting isso long.
Though this be the last painthat you make me suffer and
these the last verses that Iwrite for you.

(05:41):
These poems are in memory of alost love, things which many of
us struggle with, sometimesimmediately, sometimes in
anticipation of death, andthroughout the years after we've

(06:03):
lost our loved one.
--The light wraps you in itsmortal flame, abstracted, pale
mourner, standing that wayagainst the old propellers of
the twilight that revolvesaround you, speechless, my
friend, alone in the lonelinessof this hour of the dead and

(06:29):
filled with the lives of fire,pure air of the ruined day.
The bough of fruit falls fromthe sun on your dark garment,
the great roots of night growsuddenly from your soul and the
things that hide in you come outagain, so that a blue and

(06:56):
pallid people, your newly born,takes nourishment.
O, magnificent and fecund andmagnetic slave of the circle
that moves in turn through blackand gold, rise, lead and
possess a creation so rich inlife that its flowers perish and

(07:21):
is full of sadness--.
This one is called White Bee.
--White bee, you buzz in mysoul, drunk with honey, and your

(07:44):
flight winds in slow spirals ofsmoke.
I am the one without hope, theword without echoes, he who lost
everything and he who hadeverything Lost.
hauser, in your creeks, my lastlonging in my barren land.

(08:07):
You are the final rose, o youwho are silent that the night
flutters.
Your body, a frightened statue.
You have deep eyes in which thenight flails, cool arms of
flowers and lap of rose.

(08:27):
A butterfly of shadow has cometo sleep on you.
Ah, you who are silent.
Here is the solitude from whichyou are absent.
It is raining, the sea wind ishunting stray gulls, the water

(08:47):
walks barefoot in the wetstreets.
From that tree, the leavescomplain as though they were
sick.
White bee, even when you aregone, you buzz in my soul.
You live again in time, slenderand silent.

(09:10):
Ah, you who are silent--.
The next one is called "we haveLost Even.

(09:32):
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening,hand in hand, when the blue
night dropped on the world.
I have seen from my window thefiesta of sunset in the distant
mountaintops, sometimes a pieceof sun burned like a coin

(09:55):
between my hands, I rememberedyou with my soul clenched in
that sadness of mine that youknow.
Where were you then?
Who else was there Saying what?
Why will the hole of love comeon me suddenly when I am sad and
feel you are far away?

(10:15):
The book fell.
That has always turned to attwilight, and my cape rolled
like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always, always, you recedethrough the evenings towards

(10:39):
where the twilight goes, erasingstatues.
This one is called " I Like foryou to Be Still.
I like for you to be still.
It is though you were absentand you hear me from far away
and my voice does not touch you.
No-transcript, as all thingsare filled with my soul.

(11:03):
You emerge from things filledwith my soul.
You are, like my soul, abutterfly of dream, and you are
like the word melancholy.
I like for you to be still andyou seem far away.
It sounds as though you werelamenting a butterfly cooing

(11:26):
like a dove, and you hear mefrom far away and my voice does
not reach you.
Let me come to be still in yoursilence and let me talk to you
with your silence that is brightas a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, withits stillness and constellations

(11:50):
.
Your silence is that of a star,as remote and candid I like for
you to be still.
It is though you were absent,distant and full of sorrow.
It is though you were absent,distant and full of sorrow, as
though you had died.

(12:10):
One word, then, one smile, isenough.
I am happy.
Happy that it's not true.
concludes another episode.

(12:30):
A new one drops every Friday.
I hope you'll join us onSpotify, amazon Amazon or Apple
Podcasts.
Please contact me through myemail in the show notes if
you're interested in spiritualdirection.
While while grieving over Zoom,.
take Take care of yourselvesand your broken hearts.

(12:54):
Travel safely with God.
Vaya con Dios.