Today I wanted to share a poem that really speaks to me about the feelings my clients often bring of powerlessness, lack of control, anger and loss. Things happen in our lives that we are unable to halt or change, unfair things, painful things, great losses. We can’t go back in time and wave a magic wand, we are left with the reality of what just is. Sometimes those things seem to shatter our world and afterwards we must try to rebuild, remake, reconstitute a new one.

The poem does not tell us how we are meant to do that, for that is up to each of us, one small step at a time when we are ready. But it is a comfort to know that we are not alone, others have faced, and keep on facing, this seemingly insurmountable challenge too. That is what this poem speaks to in me.

All I cannot save

My heart is moved by all I cannot save

So much has been destroyed

I have to cast my lot with those, who,

age after age,

Perversely, with no extraordinary

Power, reconstitute the world.

Adrienne Rich