I wish I could spend a the monring writing someting truly poetic, but I’ve been swamped holding our first gala for the military widows the AWP serves and I feel that only one excerpt fully embodies what the night, these amazing women, and what we all are capable of doing when we see the light.

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
-Ellen Bass