You’re reading Good Grief. Our Spotlight Series is a weekly post, within which we share with you all a poem that has inspired or influenced our own poetry along the way.
The following is a poem from Winter Recipes From the Collective, Louise Glück's last collection of poetry, published in 2021 just two years before her passing. (You can read more about Glück and her work here.)
I think this is my second wind, my sister said. Very like the first, but that ended, I remember. Oh what a wind it was, so powerful the leaves fell off the trees. I don’t think so, I said. Well, they were on the ground, my sister said. Remember running around the park in Cedarhurst, jumping on the piles, destroying them? You never jumped, my mother said. You were good girls; you stayed where I put you. Not in our heads, my sister said. I put my arms around her. What a brave sister you are, I said.
Have another poem or two. Or ten. We’ve got lots of good stuff.
I love Louise Glück's work. She's one of my favourite poets.