A Rose Amidst the Thorns: Poems about Beauty Balancing Pain

In the face of horrors visited upon our world daily, in the struggle to protect our loved ones, choosing to let in joy is a revolutionary act. Joy returns us to everything that is good and beautiful and worth fighting for.
— Valarie Kaur

Poetry often gives us implicit messages. The takeaway is there if you think about it, as many an English teacher tries to convey, teaching us to read between the lines.

At other times it's right out there. This collection of poems falls into that category: poems in which the poet reflects directly on the stark contrasts between the many beauties in the world and its many agonies and cruelties.

John Ruskin, a prolific English author, poet, painter, philosopher, and social critic, wrote a book he titled The Duty of Delight. Critical of the Victorian Christians of his time, he wrote that they “dwell only on the duty of self-denial but exhibit not the duty of delight.”

Social activist and writer Dorothy Day used this phrase often, including as the title of a collection of her journal entries (*affiliate link). From a footnote in the book: "this phrase came to serve for Dorothy as a call to mindfulness in the face of drudgery and sorrow."

Or, as the Buddha said, "No mud, no lotus."

Sojourner Truth may have said it best: “Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me.”

These poems remind me of how incredibly fortunate I've been for the majority of my life, and how many don't have that same good fortune. 

They remind me to recommit to working for justice.

They remind me to pay attention.

"A Brief for the Defense"
Jack Gilbert

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.

"The News"
Emilie Lygren

Each morning we listen for what is breaking—

the sound of a thousand tragedies fills the air,
shattering that never stops,
headlines, a fleet of anchors tangled at our feet.

"Everything is Plundered, Betrayed, Sold"
Anna Akhmatova, translated by Stanley Kunitz

Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.

"Testimony"
Rebecca Baggett

I want to say, like Neruda,
that I am waiting for
"a great and common tenderness,"
that I still believe
we are capable of attention,
that anyone who notices the world
must want to save it.

"Adrift"
Mark Nepo

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat.

"Fear and Love"
Jim Moore 

I wish I could make the argument that a river
and a sunset plus a calm disregard of the ego
are enough. But whatever comes next must include
tents in the parking lot, that homeless camp
on the way to the airport,
and the hole in your cheek
from the cancer removed yesterday.

"September, 1918"
Amy Lowell

Some day there will be no war,
Then I shall take out this afternoon
And turn it in my fingers,
And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,
And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.

"Prayer"
Teddy Macker 

dear lord in this time of darkness
may we be unafraid to mourn and together and hugely

may dignity lose its scaffolding
faces crumble like bricks

dear lord let grief come to grief

and then o lord help us to see the bees yet in the lavender
the spokes of sunlight down through the oaks

"Sometimes"
David Budbill

I know in the next minute or tomorrow all this may be
taken from me, and therefore I've got to say, right now,
what I feel and know and see, I've got to say, right now,
how beautiful and sweet this world can be.

"Sweetness"
Stephen Dunn

Often a sweetness comes   
as if on loan, stays just long enough   

to make sense of what it means to be alive,
   then returns to its dark   
source. As for me, I don’t care   

where it’s been, or what bitter road
   it’s traveled   
to come so far, to taste so good.

"Please"
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

We need you to remind us we can
be furious and scared and near feral
over injustice and still thrill at the taste
of a strawberry, ripe and sweet,
can still meet a stranger and shake
their hand, believing in their humanness.

"Thanks"
W.S. Merwin

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

A question for you: Do you have a favorite poem, or one that's painful to read, that belongs on this list? I have the memory of reading another one that has been reprinted many places that I now can't find so I'd love to get more titles and links.

Related reading

*Bookshop.org affiliate link. If you purchase through this link I receive a teensy tiny commission. Any commissions received will be donated to nonprofit organizations working for social justice and transportation equity.
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Winter Solstice 2025

In Western society we give ourselves assignments at the new year to make a whole new self. Unrealistic assignments, of course. Between one day and the next we're not really going to flip a switch and go from zero exercise to five days a week at the gym. If we manage that for a week we'll pay for it in aches and pains anyway.

Instead of commitment by calendar, and instead of "improvement" schemes, I'm practicing other ways of marking turning points. This year I got the book Requiem, Invitation, and Celebration: A Collection of Seasonal Practices by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and Lucy Wormald, from the publishers of Emergence Magazine. It's a collection of 50 practices grounded in the evolving cycle of the seasons. (More about the book in a talk by Vaughan-Lee)

The book includes "Savoring Light, for when it's the shortest day." The practice: 

"Take a walk in the afternoon for as long as the light is present. Give attention only to the rhythm of your breath and footsteps until your mind softens. Take in the presence of the light. Mid-winter, how does your body instinctively savor it? As the light of day quickly becomes dusk--the light grainy, the world looking like it belongs to a roll of old film--what does the fleeting quality of the light open in you before you are lost to the dark?"

I have to say that I'm not "lost to the dark," though, as the sun slips below the horizon, our part of the globe rotating away. I'm simply in the dark, which has its own sounds and sensations. Without the darkness, the glowing lights on my neighbors' homes wouldn't gleam so brightly. Owl wouldn't fly to find food. The coyote pack that sets up a chorus each night in the nearby park wouldn't sing their laughing songs. 

The globe keeps turning, and we're really always turning toward the light.

Poems and readings for this year's Solstice, with brief excerpts and links to the full pieces:

I read a lot of poetry but have relatively few committed to memory. One of these--ish--is Robert Frosts's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". The "ish" led me to look it up to refresh my memory of the spot where I usually get stuck "between the woods and frozen lake." I know the rhyme scheme so if I can get past that I can keep going. 

For some reason,  reading it this time I realized it's actually a winter Solstice poem. Why, you ask? This line: "the darkest evening of the year."

"Solstice Poem"
Margaret Atwood

This is the solstice, the still point
of the sun, its cusp and midnight,
the year’s threshold
and unlocking


This year I do not want
the dark to leave me.
I need its wrap
of silent stillness,
its cloak
of long lasting embrace.
Too much light
has pulled me away
from the chamber
of gestation.


Winter is magic
in decay, look what changes,
on the threshold of the year. Oh holy,
hinge. Step across the hearth
(earth and heart as one).

Jan Richardson 

I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.
And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.

"On the Winter Solstice"
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

And I have been waiting—
which I might have denied,
snuggled in deep as I was,
drowsy and night-drunk,
certain of my joy in the dark,
but oh, such a way to wake,
discovered by the light of a star

Brianna Kocka, in What the Winter Solstice Asks of Us, provides suggestions for how we might mark the day with rest (all seven kinds), ritual, and restorative practices.

From Starhawk's Winter Solstice Message, a reminder that this year Solstice and Hanukkah occur together, both reminders of the light, and these lines: 

"And the message of Solstice, retold every year, is that just when the world grows darkest, the sun will rise again.

"We are each a little light, a small flame that needs sacred fuel to burn. Yet we can keep that flame alight, longer than we might expect, if we commit to acts of courage and compassion. On this longest night, as the Great Mother labors to bring forth the sun of the new year, we are midwives. We tend, we comfort, we empathize, we do the work. Let us bring to birth the warmth of compassion, the fire of commitment, the light of truth this year. The wheel is turning. After each night comes a new dawn."

Jennifer Hall's Lessons from the Universe essay "The Winter Solstice: Sacred Pause Before the Light Returns" reinforces the idea that we can sit with who and where we are without seeking improvement in a season of rest. She offers this invitation:

"The Winter Solstice isn’t here to rush you into the future.
It’s here to remind you that light is inevitable, even when you can’t yet see it.

Honor the pause.
Trust the dark.
Let the return of the light meet you where you are.

That’s how cycles close with grace.
And that’s how new ones begin with clarity."

Brigit Anna McNeill shares beautiful illustrations by several artists in her piece "Winter Solstice: The Long Night that Knows Our Names." She closes with this blessing:

"May this solstice meet you gently.

May it remind you that you are not late, broken, or lost.

You are wintering, as all living things must.

And somewhere beneath the quiet, the light is already on its way."

Photo of sunset glowing between the large standing stones of Stonehenge. Big upright blocks of stone, some with crosspieces balanced on top to create doorways.

I went on a fabulous trip to England this fall with family and finally got to see Stonehenge, a lifelong dream. I couldn't go right up to it since they have it roped off. The benefit of that was that we could get pictures of the stones without people all around them. We also visited Avebury, a much larger circle although without the lintel crosspieces and much more worn, and the Rolling-Right standing stones, a small site. At Avebury and Rolling-Right we saw the remains of offerings people had left there at the equinox, just a week or two before we visited. This picture of Stonehenge isn't mine; I'm sharing it for the glow of the sunset through the stones, which people will view on the winter solstice. 

When we watch the light pass, we have to remember to watch (and work) for the light to return.

Related Reading





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Spiced Apple Butter Recipe

Admittedly not the biggest tweaks I've ever made to a recipe, but here it is. In this year's food preservation I found myself going back to last year's canning posts for recipes and links and I'll keep this running tally going.

I had rounded up quite a few apple butter recipes when I invented my Chai Apple Butter Reciped last year. I wanted one that used apple cider vinegar for the extra tang; some recipes don't include that, or don't use much. For this batch I started with The Pioneer Woman's apple butter recipe. 

Since I was simultaneously working on two other recipes I used the slow-cooker method that Food in Jars uses for her Salted Caramel Pear Butter (made a batch of that two days ago). My slow cooker has a steam vent hole in the lid. For the first stage of cooking in this recipe I block that with a chopstick to keep the moisture in and cook the flavor into the flesh of the apples. That comes out for the later stage when I need the liquid to cook off.

The Pioneer Woman calls for adding a cup of water. I substituted apple cider. Why not make it even more appley when you have the chance?

Earlier this year I processed a lot of gleaned apples with my corer/slicer and had both skin-on and peeled in the freezer. For this recipe I used the ones with the skins, for the extra pectin and flavor. This saves the peeled ones for a future apple pie or other dessert use. Go with what you have and what you prefer. You can run the cooked mash through a food mill if you started with unpeeled apples and don't want the extra fiber.

Of course, per the title here, I oomphed up the spice. She called for 1 teaspoon of apple pie spice or pumpkin pie spice for three pounds of apples. I drew some inspiration from British Mixed Spice, discovered along the way in my never-again-will-I-make-ketchup research. I wanted it to be cinnamon-forward. This might sound like a lot of seasonings but it didn't taste overly spiced with that dusty quality I've created at times with over-enthusiastic perusal of the spice drawer.

I needed to deal with the aftermath of the Great Freezer Defrost of 2025, so my quantities are larger than my starting-point recipe: 4 pounds of apples. More than this quantity of pears had worked just fine in the slow cooker. You can scale this back to the quantities in The Pioneer Woman's recipe.

Ingredients

4 lbs. apples, chopped. These can be frozen or canned, skins on or off according to your preference
1 c. apple cider vinegar
1-1/2 c. apple cider or apple juice
3/4 t. salt
1-2/3 c. brown sugar
2 t. vanilla paste or vanilla extract, if you have it on hand
2 t. flaky sea salt or kosher salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. black pepper
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. mace (optional; for me this is the essence of pumpkin pie spice)
1/4 t. cardamom
1/8 t. cloves

Directions

Place apples, vinegar, cider/juice and salt in slow cooker and stir to combine. Turn it to high. Cook for 60-90 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want the fruit to be soft enough to be blendable.

Blend with an immersion stick blender if you have one. Or remove a couple of cups at a time, blend in a blender or food processor, then return all the blended sauce to the slow cooker. Be careful when blending hot semi-liquid foods. Don't fill the container at or above the halfway mark, keep a towel over the top, adjust the lid so you're letting steam escape rather than build up. All of this is why I prefer my immersion blender.

Mix the dried spices together, then add the brown sugar, vanilla and spices to the pot. Prop the lid slightly ajar so steam can escape, maybe with your spatula or a chopstick laid crosswise so the lid can rest on it on one end. 

Cook on high, stirring often, until it's the color and consistency you want. If you want to be thick and spreadable this will take a while, 2-3 hours. If you stop much sooner, congratulations! You have made a spiced applesauce. 

Stirring often means every 15 minutes or so. Food in Jars says to stir every 30 minutes but if I waited that long I'd have apple butter stuck on the bottom of the pot. You can let it go a bit longer early on when the pot has plenty of liquid in it. The more it cooks down and thickens, the more you need to be sure to scrape the bottom thoroughly. 

How hot your slow cooker gets will be a factor only you can judge, and that will affect your stirring frequency and total cook time. Food in Jars blogger Marisa notes that the older Crock-Pot had a gentler low temperature than newer ones. That's my experience with my newer model; I really can't go off and leave it.

Prep your jars for canning according to the safe canning practices from the National Center on Home Food Preservation. Process 15 minutes at full boil.

My yield: 4 half-pints, 3 quarter-pints, 1 6-oz. jar in a reuse experiment from a commercial product (nice straight-sidded jar)

Canning posts usually show something like this as the triumphant closing shot, or maybe a close-up of the delectable contents. 

In reality the closing scene is more like this. 

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Green Tomato Chutney Not-a-Ketchup Sauce

I may have noted recently that I don't think green tomato ketchup is worth the effort.

Also noted: Large quantity (~6 pounds) of green tomatoes plus chopped onions plus canned apples, all prepped and in the fridge under the assumption that I'd be making another ketchup recipe.

Third note to file: Lots of green tomato chutney and green tomato/tomatillo chutney already on hand in all their chunky goodness from last year and earlier this year.

Hence the thought experiment: What if I followed a chutney recipe but then blended it to make it smooth like ketchup? I should have some pretty screamin' awesome sweet/tangy sauce that would be great with fries, tofu, on oven-baked yams, maybe over rice, with cheese on crackers if it wasn't too runny to sit there, blend with yogurt to make an interesting dip. Many possible uses! Although not a ketchup! (And yes, blended green chutney sauce looks quite a lot like split pea soup.)

Photo from overhead looking into a stainless steel pot with green sauce in it, roughly the shade of split pea soup

I give quantities as if you had diced or chopped things. I heartily endorse throwing ingredients for this into the food processor and whirling them up to save time. You're going to be pureeing and smooshing to get the lumps out anyway.

This makes a big batch! I'd already committed myself with the earlier prep. This could be cut in half with proportionate adjustments to everything. Cook time will vary depending on how juicy your tomatoes are.

Inspirations

Wet ingredients
  • Green tomatoes: ~6-8 cups, yield from ~6 pounds
  • Yellow or white onion: 1-1/2 cups, diced
  • Apple: 2 cups, diced, canned, or even applesauce if that's what you have
  • Green bell pepper (or another sweet bell pepper color if that's what you have): 1 whole pepper, diced
  • Dried fruit: 1 cup of whatever turns your cranks. I like a combination of dates and dried cranberries
  • Vinegar: 1 cup. Malt or apple cider vinegar preferred; white vinegar will be sharper; red or white wine vinegar is fine. Just needs to be labeled 5% acidity.
  • Brown sugar: 1-1/2 cups. OK to substitute white sugar if that's what you have
  • Green or red chilis, optional: 1-2, diced, if you want to add some fresh chili heat. Substitute 1-2 t. crushed red pepper, tasting and adjusting for your heat preference as the recipe cooks down
  • 1 T. fresh grated ginger, or ginger paste from a tube (so handy!)
  • 4-5 garlic cloves, crushed, or 1 T. garlic paste from a tube
  • Optional: 1-1/2 T. vegan Worcestershire sauce, if available. Regular is fine if you don't have vegan, but then you should label this for any gift recipients who might prefer vegan
  • Optional if you want a thinner sauce: 1/2 c. sherry, cooking sherry, or something you routinely substitute for these (apple cider or apple juice could work here)
Dry ingredients/Seasonings
Stir the dry spices together in a small bowl, then add to the wet ingredients. Yes, yes, you can absolutely dump the measurements straight into the sauce without mixing them first, but combining them first gives you a better distribution in the liquid than if you end up with a surprise clump of ground ginger.
  • 1 T. fennel seeds, whirled in a coffee grinder or pounded with a mortar and pestle
  • 1 T. ground mustard
  • 1 T. salt
  • 2 t. ground cardamom
  • 2 t. ground black pepper
  • 1 t. smoked paprika
  • 1 t. cinnamon
  • 1 t. ground cardamom
  • 1 t. ground ginger (or increase fresh ginger above)
  • 1/8 t. nutmeg
  • 1/8 t. cloves
Put all ingredients except for the optional sherry or apple juice in one big stockpot (takes longer) or divide across two pans, preferably wide saucepans or Dutch ovens with plenty of surface for evaporation of the liquids.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a rapid simmer/low boil, and cook, stirring often, for around 60-90 minutes. Tomatoes spit when they boil so wear mitts, pay attention. Don't cover the pans; the goal here is some evaporation. Frequent stirring is essential to prevent some of the sauce burning to the bottom of the pan. Ask me how I know.

At 60-90 minutes the vegetables may not be entirely soft yet. Taste the seasonings and oomph up flavor notes you'd like to have a bit more of. Go carefully here, maybe 1/4 t. or 1/2 t. at a time if it's something that could nd up overpowering.

Continue to cook until everything is soft enough to blend. I tried my immersion blender first, then went to the regular blender. Be careful blending hot liquids. Put in less than half the container's capacity, have the lid cracked open a tiny bit to let steam out, start on a low pulse and step it up as the contents puree and liquify.

Return to the kettle and cook a bit longer to reach the consistency you want. This is ready to can now, though. 

If it's thicker than you want and you'd like a more pourable sauce, add 1/2 cup of sherry (idea borrowed from the Creative Canning recipe linked above), apple juice or apple cider, and cook another 5 minutes or so.


Yield will vary depending on how juicy your tomatoes are. My yield: 8 half-pints, 11 quarter-pints.

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