A poem for your day:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  How to Greet a Widow   Hello—  start there.  Look me over  kindly—does it seem  that I could bear  How are you?  Or is my posture more suited  to a comment about weather,  or dogs? Do you think you know me  well enough to ask How are you doing?  I will in turn look you over  kindly, if I can muster it,  and gauge your capacity  for listening—will you listen  if I tell you? I will calibrate  my answer. Maybe  just keep it to I come and go—  my current standard—  after using fine elicited reactions  of you’re so strong, or worse—  Start with Hello—  once used to summon the ferryman—  take me across with your sweet hello.  Let us start over, oars at the ready, boat small  yet seaworthy.    Donna Spruijt-Metz     Thimble, Volume 9, Number 2, Fall 2026

In the waning days of September, browsing social media, I encountered a link to this poem. The titled intrigued me, so I clicked and read.

Immediately, I was drawn in by the feeling of an actual person speaking to me, offering simple conversational advice about how to converse with the bereft. “Hello—start there. . . . does it seem that I could bear How are you?” The question—does it seem that I could bear—acknowledges the weight of grief, suggests an approach both natural and observant:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  is my posture more suited  to a comment about weather,  or dogs? Do you think you know me  well enough to ask How are you doing?

Here is a narrator at home with herself, if not her grief, honest about the potential difficulty of even the simplest exchange:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  I will in turn look you over  kindly, if I can muster it,  and gauge your capacity  for listening . . .

The speaker’s voice reassures me, makes me feel at home in the presece of grief, helps me to realize that I can share in a person’s grief without the added burden of unnecessary awkwardness.

Then, seamlessly, the poem shifts into myth, a closing surprise that takes my breath away:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  Start with Hello—  once used to summon the ferryman—  take me across with your sweet hello.  Let us start over, oars at the ready, boat small  yet seaworthy.

I love the closing image here—the suggestion that anyone of us could join a grieving person. That together, we could row wherever loss leads.

About the Author:

Donna Spruijt-Metz’s books include To Phrase a Prayer for Peace (2025, Wildhouse Press), General Release from the Beginning of the World, And Scuttle My Balloon (with Flower Conroy), and Wu Wei Eats an Egg (Lucas Hirsch in translation). Her poems appear in Poem-a-day, Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She’s an emeritus psychology professor, MacDowell fellow, rabbinical school drop-out, former classical flutist, and briefly, a rock and roll bassist. She gets restless.

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