Another contribution to the grief poetry

A. Marie

Thanks to Jeff86 and Crushed for their recent contributions of poetry capturing what we're all going through. Here's another, from the amazing Scottish folk singer Karine Polwart, called "The Fire Thief." I've given myself permission to cry me a river every time either this one or Karen Matheson's version of Robert Burns's "Ae Fond Kiss" comes up on Thistle Radio (the 24/7 version of The Thistle and Shamrock on NPR). I don't know exactly what Karine means by "the fire thief," but every other line of this song could be describing my response to losing my DH to EOAD. I hope it reverberates with some of you as much as it's done with me. (In Scots dialect, "rickle" = "a heap or jumble"; "doul" = "grief.")

Who stole the light from my laddie's eyes?
All alone and aloney O
And left me another lad in disguise?
Down where I cannot go
Down where I cannot follow

And who stole the words from my laddie's tongue?
All alone and aloney O
And left me a rickle of skin and bone?
Down where I cannot go
Down where I cannot follow

Who stole today?
And who stole tomorrow?
And left me with nothing, with nothing
But doul and sorrow?
But doul and sorrow?

Oh I know the name of the fire thief
All alone and aloney O
But you can't grow a tree from a fallen leaf
Down where I cannot go
Down where I cannot go
Down where I cannot follow

Stuck in the middle

That's beautiful.  Thank you.

When she titled the piece Fire Thief, perhaps she meant "Who stole the fire from my laddie's eyes?"  And the coals from my hearth, the light from my day, and the sun from my summer . . .

Stuck in the middle

Songs like that remind me so much of the sad songs from the Appalachians.  Same culture, I guess.