Blessings for the Brokenhearted

There are no good adjectives for 2020. So often this year, I have written to check on friends and family and found myself at a loss for words. These ____ times. These ____ events. But the title of Jan Richardson’s poem is apt: Brokenhearted.

In this poem, Richardson acknowledges the pain of the moment, and asks us “to simply marvel at the mystery of how a heart so broken can go on beating.” Which it does.

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Blessing for the Brokenhearted

By Jan Richardson

Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.

Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound,
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.

Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this—

as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it,

as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still,

as if it trusts
that its own
persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.