Grief Talks

Grief, another word for Love

Grief as energy, at times

Floundering, at times

Flowing like water

Rushing through our blood

Seeking a finish line

When there is no end

Good Grief

How did this happen-to-me grief

Weeping, wailing, sobbing 

Confusing and fluctuating feelings

Abound, streaming

Through every cell of our beings

Crushing Grief

Taking us to our knees

Withering our limbs

Dissipating our strengths

We collapse within grief

Searching for answers

When there are none

Coloring grief from

Wide deep purples of desire

To long whispers of red

A rose that died on the vine

Only to be pinched off so

Another rose bud can bloom

Grief about a dead sparrow

A cute chipmunk stiff on the asphalt

Ranging from small, brief griefs

To all-absorbing, I cannot-live

Without-this-person any longer

Grief

Imagining a limb cut off

From our once healthy bodies

A piece of me lost with the loss

Of you

Without knowing or realizing

That we have kept our loved ones

Deep inside our bodies

Minds and hearts
Even in our bones

Where they reside

One by one

Until we contain them all
Overflowing with memories

Mournful and sad

Heart-rending and gashed

Keening with great grief that

Washes over us like a steep

Waterfall, plunging down 

Toward our heads

Bending us as we bow

Before such huge human grief

Grief talks to us earnestly

Sometimes quietly

So intimate and true

So personal and strange

Our unique responses to

Grief collect inside us

And all around us

Overriding our functional

Operating systems

As we just let go

And feel all the things

We hear you, Grief

Leaving the womb

Grief precedes new life