Poetry for the Troubled Mind

A group of researchers in the United Kingdom are exploring the concept of bibliotherapy - that is, reading as a form of therapy for those undergoing mental and emotional stress. In The Lancet, Jonathan Bate and Andrew Schuman write of the promises and challenges of what they call "the reading therapy," and point us to an organization called ReLit, which explores the relationship between literature and mental health.

I know from personal experience and from conversations with others that there are many who find consolation in the act of reading (and writing!) their own poetry and prose. In that spirit, I'd like to share with you two pieces by some very talented poets in our group, in the hopes that their words may, as John Milton put it, help "assuage the tumors of the troubled mind."

Mount Pleasant Cemetery
Thomas DeFreitas

A peaceful place, where potholed roads
made quirky pathways in between the stones,
where a wooden footbridge spans a thin-veined brook,
where leaves of broad elms flourish, blush, or fall
according to the temper of the year:
these acres keep Aunt Brenda, Cousin Michael;
my mom's parents, Nana and Grampa Mel;
Arlingtonians whose names (O'Hurley,
Demopoulos, Bohajian, Capasso)
take on the friendliness of good neighbours - 
I've seen them often on my evening walks.
It's likely I'll be buried here beneath
God's clement gaze, beneath unjudging skies,
be shaded by an overhang of branches,
my pulseless limbs compounded with kind earth.

Credo
Mario Pita

When everything is looking awfully grim,
since we all end up buried in the sod,
and prospects for the future all seem dim,
I don’t believe in anything but God.
When there appears no reason to have hope
and chances for relief from woe look slim,
and it’s insanely difficult to cope,
I don’t believe in anything but Him.
While causes for despair add up to many
and matter seems to be all we’re made of,
and we look for a sign and can’t find any,
I don’t believe in anything but Love.
The time will come when death appears to seize us.
I don’t believe in anything. Except Jesus.

(Visit https://snapshotcouplets.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/credo/ to hear Mario read his poem, and to read more of his work!)