Melancholia and Grief

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Father by Ted Kooser

"Grief" by Louise Erdrich

Sometimes you have to take your own hand
as though you were a lost child
and bring yourself stumbling
home over twisted ice.

Whiteness drifts over your house.
A page of warm light
falls steady from the open door.

Here is your bed, folded open.
Lie down, lie down, let the blue snow cover you.

(from "Original Fire: Selected and New Poems", Harper Perennial, 2004)

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