A Garden in the Ashes

Seven years after losing her husband and soulmate of thirty-eight years, Benita Glickman continues to turn to poetry to navigate grief’s landscape. In this deeply moving fifth collection, she explores how love endures through pain, how hope emerges from sorrow, and how beauty blooms even in the ashes.

With tenderness and clarity, Benita reminds us that grief is deeply personal—and healing doesn’t follow a straight path. Her poems—ranging from monostichs, haiku, cinquain, and tankas, to abecedarians and acrostics, to rhymed couplets and free verse—offer comfort, strength, and quiet wisdom. Raw, meditative, and timeless, her poetry reads like a mantra from the heart—for the heart.

Nature’s rhythms echo throughout the collection, reflecting life’s cycles and the promise of renewal:

“We slipped on winter’s icy stretches,
splashed in spring’s puddles,
and sweated through summer’s sweltering heat.”

A Garden in the Ashes: Finding Beauty in What Remains invites readers to find solace in sorrow, meaning in memory, and transcendent love—even in the shadow of loss. It is a testament to resilience, transformation, and the strength of love.

“Where a loss has lived, its love reassures.”