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Dorothy Shubow Nelson’s poems have appeared in: Pangyrus; Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace; Polis IV; Human Architecture VII; Consequence Magazine; Atelier; Café Review; Sojourner; and various newspapers and magazines. Her collection, The Dream of the Sea was published in 2008. She initiated a Veterans Writing Group in Gloucester MA. in 2013 and has led this group for nine years. She served as editor of the anthology The Inner Voice and The Outer World: Writings by Veterans and Their Families from the Cape Ann Veterans Writing Workshop published in 2017, 2018 by The Gloucester Writers Center.

Writing Grief

Dorothy Shubow Nelson

Once before this strange time
I had a vision of you
Walking around outside
In the sun by yourself
Then years later I saw you
In real time — I came to
Your room in the hospital
You were lying on your side
Facing the door.
        I appeared and you called
My name
                  Dorothy
     There was no rancor
                A true welcoming
          Gladness even
You had let go, perhaps, of that
Time of wondering why, why
This direction of your life, why
This bed to be your last.
                    But I have not
                            Let go. I see you
In that bed and then the shroud of
Dirt on your casket, and still have
Not let go — still thinking we
         could do something.

— Dorothy Shubow Nelson

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