”Halo” by Melissa Stein

Credit: favim.com

Melissa Stein is an incredibly talented author. The San Francisco poet’s work has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies, and for good reason. Her writing is visceral — the imagery it conjures is at once heartbreaking and uplifting. She crafts intimate moments with every poem, and “Halo” is no exception.

In this poem, Stein considers what death — in the moment that it’s happening to a loved one — might look like.

She writes:

I watched, for a long time, her outline,

her shadow, her second self

sink into sand.  They say the soul

lifts from the body; that it takes wing

from sullied matter, a perfumed storm,

petals and light.

Credit: honickmanfoundation.org

Many poets write about death and about grief, but taking a moment to consider death as it occurs is much less common. The way Stein does so is incredibly thoughtful and powerful. There is much sadness to her words, but an undeniable beauty and sense of peace also emanate from her stanzas.

The first time I read this poem it left me in tears, not so much out of dismay, but because I was moved by the descriptions and the grace with which Stein describes someone dying. The imagery feels very real and raw, and the way she references nature — storms and petals and sand — lends an elegance to a tough subject.

The poem closes with these lines:

…A lowering, not a lifting

as the earth that once held her up

loosened to take her in.  A sigh.

Then a quiet that was more than quiet,

a listening that itself became like noise.

To read “Halo” in its entirety, pick up a copy of Melissa Stein’s prize-winning first collection, “Rough Honey.”