Poetry By Samantha Ashe

Aurélien Adoue CC




“I weep because you cannot save people, only love them”  Anaïs Nin


I know I cannot save you. 
I can’t stop the cancer from coming back,
the joints from deteriorating,
the smog from settling into our aging brains. 
I cannot repair my friend’s marriage,
save my children from heartbreak,
or my husband from the sad days. 

I can only sit beside them,
commiserate about our shared humanity 
and say silly things to help forget 
that I too will die someday.

I can only offer this invitation
to revel in our dissaray;  
to look closely at our breakable bodies 
that are born of this earth,
our hands made of the same sea 
our ancestors crossed to get here, 
our lungs filled with the same air 
that bends around the corners 
of the moon,
and give in to all of it. 

I can only offer a full surrender,
a chance to be awake 
enough to notice your life whizzing by 
and feel nothing but relief; 
sweet recognition 
of your own space in the swarm.  

I don’t think it was ever death 
we needed saving from--
only the loneliness that comes before.

And if you have known love, 
if even for the brief span of time 
it takes for the two arms of another person 
to wrap themselves 
completely around you, 
you have already been saved. ​



Samantha has degree in Multicultural Studies with a focus in Community Health from Western Washington University. She has been previously published in the “The Bluebird Word,” Trust and Travel,” “Let in Burn, Let it Float,” “Still the Water: Olympia Poets on Place” and “Open Book.” When she is not writing near an open window, she can be found in the woods, chasing summits and sunrises. ​