Grief is the thing without feathers

Keep going

an hour longer than you think you can...

Strength 

is not how heavy the load

or capacity 

to measure up

against the weary

whose Joy

dwells in Nothing-

of want

Everything back,

as though undo was a direction

from undone.

When Lost;

the Way, the Hope, the Time,

the trust

the will, the want, the why-

The sun rises its warm cheek 

lighting the low flame

of a fresh poppy 

bursting through the winter mud.

Anyway the next step,

the next moment

finds me

empty and lighter and

unable to grasp ahold

of any-thing-any-body-any-way

right or left

or stay 

strong long enough

to make sense

of Beauty. 

Painting by Auguste Allongé (1833-1898), 'A Walk in the Forest' c. 1873 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Wait Capacity

Ghosted

by your own spirit,

soul stuck in a purgatory

until the facts are faced,

finally-

what then?

Lucid flesh like

apparition, unheard

and in between 

pain and suffering-despair

and the need to 

continue to breathe

cradling the heartbeat,

insisting endurance

and through it.

There was no There 

there,

carbon copies of conceit,

echoing

'I was here'.

Nothing gained

without loss,

as if grief gave more

than it took 

of Us

Distorted shadow figures

have mistaken

me

for empty.

Painting by Sergey Vinogradov, dated before 1938 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Laundering

Where does one begin
to unpack the suitcase of grief?

While it may be nice to throw it all away,
or donate these shreds,
I find it impossible to imagine
never
wearing those favorite jeans again,
the perfect bra, the stained shirt,
the holy sleeping attire-

I have no desire
to wash and fold and put away
for the 235th time
these obligatory articles.

I sense that grief starts with the smell
held between the threads
and remember distinctly
the quilt my grandmother made me
that fell apart
completely-
like family...

Long gone,
I ponder the scraps
and marvel a few moments
at all the layers we carry
and feel a sudden need
to give the shirt off my back

only to see
how I was made
myself again
woven with only
the softest flesh.



Painting by Aristarkh Lentulov (1882-1943) 'During the laundry', c. 1910, Public domain.