Send My Roots Rain

Book excerpt: Langley offers comfort and encouragement to those struggling with recent loss or grief, helping them find language for complex emotions, and open their hearts through poetry. Send My Roots Rain is a companion full of stories—sometimes wry and funny, always observant and accepting—for letting grief unfold and teach us. Langley invites a keen awareness that the passage through grief is the navigation of a narrow strait, requiring patience, skill, and worthy companions. These poems can be those companions on the journey. Langley has carefully selected 60 poems and arranged them in a meaningful arc, beginning with the shock of early grief, leading through a sensitive exploration of a new inner space. She introduces each section, encouraging the ongoing embrace of the healing power of poems, writing, and entry into the grieving process. Each poem is followed by a brief meditation and quotation, with questions for contemplation, journaling, or group discussion.