I hold you more dear than myself
closer in the night cradled so gently
my heart become a feathered bird
able to fly in sun-filled dreams
laughter filling my days
so that I open the door to joyous greeting
having been guided home by your smile
and no waves of sorrow no rainfall of tears
will ever be strong enough to wash these away
your love a steady comfort
your memory a precious gift
I sit on the side of the road
holding the hand of a small child of grief
he rocks besides me disconsolate and starving
I give him water drawn from tears
and food pulled from rocky hardship
to feed him with what he’s known
were I to offer the radiant fruit of jewel trees
that shelter us both from the burning sun
he would die from shock
every Sunday I walk down these streets
these streets marked by your absence
these streets empty but filled
full to overflowing with you everywhere
I see you where you’ve never been
on the corner waiting besides that one broken sign
in a tea house standing patiently beneath a neon cup
at a bus stop sitting disdainfully on a dirty bench
you had left where we lived before
to make room for something but I never knew what
now that I’m here in a city we never dreamed of
I find you back and back and back
tears burn just as much in this place
As we continue through our time,
We learn to make friends with difficult loss.
Grief and mourning accompany us,
Like mist and fog on a gray autumn day.
Yet even in the bleakest moments,
We can remember fragments of joy.
Let us pause to reflect on the wonder of clouds,
The fall of rain, and the wind moving through the trees.
Thus we live with the ache of memories,
Letting their beauty and sorrow scatter like drifting leaves.
We love you always.
Let us gather chrysanthemums
For mourning in these perilous times.
Weave them into crowns of sorrow
For grief at lives taken in brutal war.
Scatter their petals on the wind
For sympathy with those who remain.
These are but the slightest gestures,
Tiny funereal floral tributes.
Do more where we can.
You still live on.
Not in some celestial hall,
Separate from those you left behind,
And watching them go about their lives.
No, you remain present
In the stories we tell of you,
Among those who knew and loved you.
And you will reach strangers even yet,
As these are shared,
And people see your name to ask,
Who was this?
While we are here to remember and tell
And all those who come after us who have heard,
You will live.
I see you now,
Your face turned away from me
And hidden in shadow.
You will be everywhere
As I move through this changed life,
The one I used to live with you.
The birds you rescued have fledged and flown the nest.
I am slowly getting the house organized.
When I go out, people ask where you’ve been.
Sometimes I still can’t bring myself to answer.
This grief is yet very raw.
I will survive, but I miss you so.
This grief twists around me,
A primordial root connected to the fundamental wailing
Pulled from the the soul of the earth.
My tears are the salt of the sea and the stream of the rain;
They are water itself and life-
Bitter and burning and flow.
I scream so loud it swallows the universe.
My laments echo down time’s corridors
Like fell black-winged horses running a doomed apocalyptic race.
My words are forever etched on the very pillars of creation itself.
I am done.
