'It was a mistake
To put her daughter in an orphanage
During the Moscow famine

Tsvetaeva realized too late
It was an error
That could never be rectified

And cost her a daughter
Who starved to death she said
God punished ne.'

From the poem "Gabriel" by Edward Hirsch. (Highly recommended.)

Emily Rapp wrote in the NYT: 'Hirsch, the author of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, including “A Poet’s Glossary,” a comprehensive index of poetic terms, democratizes poetry in the style and content of his poems, and in the accessible, critical attention he brings to the study of poetry. Turning a poetic imagination to loss, “Gabriel” inventories the bitter tricks of suffering and reveals grief’s power to bewilder and disorient: “Because there is no path / There is only a blunt rock / With a river to fall into.” The book is not without hope; although the problem of grief can never be solved, there is value — and poetry — in attempts to puzzle it out.'

Read the review here.

Is grief a problem that can never be solved? "Gabriel" is as much about guilt and powerlessness and the problem of how to raise a child as it is about grief.

The problem of procreation can never be solved. Whether the procreation takes place through adoption or not is in the end nothing more than a detail, an important detail but a detail.