lenten journal: aftermath

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Word AFTERMATH. Wooden small cubes with letters isolated on black background with copy space available. Concept image.

In my reading this week, I came across these words:

If we’re not to lose heart in the aftermath of failures, we must take care how we tell our stories. — (Lawrence Weinstein, Grammar for a Full Life: How the Ways We Shape a Sentence Can Limit or Enlarge Us)

His words helped me find these.

aftermath

the oldest use of the word
has nothing to do with
tragedy or arithmetic

and all to do with agriculture
the aftermath grows after
the first crop has been cut

something grows after failure
and heartache in the wake
of absence after grief

the stories are the soil
we retell (re-toil) or perhaps
the seeds of second chances

that add up to more than
the sum of our catastrophes
inadequacies and mistakes

after math comes story time
where the words can add up
to more than what was lost

Peace,
Milton

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