> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://poetry101.love/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The Thing Is
- URL: https://poetry101.love/the-thing-is/
- Published: 2021-12-20T02:07:18.000Z
- Updated: 2021-12-20T02:07:18.000Z
- Description: by Ellen Bass
- Author: Melissa Anderson
- Tags: Ellen Bass, #Import 2026-11-04 19:11

to love life, to love it even  
when you have no stomach for it  
and everything you’ve held dear  
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,  
your throat filled with the silt of it.  
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat  
thickening the air, heavy as water  
more fit for gills than lungs;  
when grief weights you down like your own flesh  
only more of it, an obesity of grief,  
you think, *How can a body withstand this?*  
Then you hold life like a face  
between your palms, a plain face,  
no charming smile, no violet eyes,  
and you say, yes, I will take you  
I will love you, again.

---

Bass, Ellen. [Indigo](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Indigo/jabYDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&kptab=getbook&ref=poetry101.love). United States, Copper Canyon Press. 2020.