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<\/a>Just One Goodbye: Poems from the Heart<\/a> by Balroop Singh<\/a>\nMy rating: 5 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n
Balroop Singh\u2019s collection of poems about the loss of her husband is unremitting in its poignancy for the first dozen or so poems. For about twenty pages I was reduced to tears with so many beautifully expressed feelings in so many verses. You are so aware of Balroop\u2019s need to say goodbye to him after her unexpected loss. The melancholy is dripping off each of those pages, maybe too cloying at times, but when she finds strength in her muse in the second half of the collection we can try to understand the solace from her pain that she sometimes finds there. In fact in the poem, \u201cLearning to Live Without You\u201d Singh realises that her muse will kick her \u201cout of her mourning!\u201d And she begins to recognise that her muse is her \u201cprized protector.\u201d<\/p>\n
From other collections of her poems I was aware of Balroop Singh\u2019s love of nature and in the poem here, \u201cA Reverie,\u201d I was not surprised to read that when she sought freedom from the gloom of grief, she found light and sweetness and beauty once more in flowers, butterflies; and she borrowed \u201clight from fireflies\/ To ignite my will to live\/ To be as spontaneous as ever\u2026 To soothe my grieving heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
The explanation of her journey through this is shown by so many verses, from lines like, \u201cShocked beyond words,\u201d and \u201cHope flew away with you,\u201d to some of those in the poem titled \u201cNostalgia\u201d when she finds precious uplifting memories. There are words here that help to remind her to carry on with life as best she can. Using her memories of her lost husband she says:
\u201cYour smiles shine around me
Calling upon me to be myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
The later poems give a small but important break from Balroop\u2019s grief when she recalls fond times with her soulmate, through winter snows and nature walks around their home:
\u201cI am swept off by the north wind,
Grappling to find a foothold,
Wishing you could hold me
Just for a while.\u201d
This is a lovely, but heart-breaking collection, and worth all the empathy one can find.<\/p>\n