In selecting and organizing poems that cool our grief-fevered brow or at least sing in rhythm with our wailing, there was no clear way to categorize suffering and its healing. I chose the ways that speak to me in sharpest tones: to suffer, to recover, to confront death, irreconcilable loss and then at last, slapping the lid of the box closed as Pandora did, so that hope doesn’t escape us completely.
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Of Suffering
Sorrow BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Departure By Edna St. Vincent Millay
Of Recovery
Ashes of Life BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Of Death
Dirge Without Music BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
The Answer BY SARA TEASDALE
Of Grief
Dirge Without Music BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Of Children
Four Days After the Shooting BY Mary Anne Mohanraj
For the City that Nearly Broke Me BY REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS
Song for Dead Children BY MURIEL RUKEYSER
Epilogue BY STEVE GEHRKE
Of Hope
Dirge Without Music BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
poems by author
STEVE GEHRKE
SARA TEASDALE
G. L. Morrison 
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