Grief is Slow

Grief is Slow

(“Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’” John 11:23)

Grief is slow like the summer sludge in desert spring-beds,
grief is fast like yesterday’s clouds,
grief is heavy like muggy midnights,
grief is light like Christmas memories.

But death feels permanent, stiff and dry.
Death smells of the end of a long season
rather than a grand finale.

Death sneaks up on us though we’ve known its name
from the first last breath that did not return.
Death is sudden, a phone call after lunch or
crumbling on a tennis court.

And we look at the dirt, we stare at the sky,
we turn to every compass point, we cross our fingers
and hope that dying is not a forgone conclusion.

Though the seasons spiral around us, they are not the same.
The leaves that fall do not rise but turn to dust while
the branches sleep until spring awakens the sap again.

Traveling sailors return to port, children come home from school,
dogs sniff their way to owners who moved a hundred miles away.
Memories stay like tent pegs, the canvas ballooned by wind.

And yet, though this world is built upon clay--
monuments, palaces, armaments and warriors all decay--

There is more to say than someday. There is more to hear than
questions unanswered. There is more to see than lets the light in,
there is more to hold than our heart’s capacity.

So rise, love and grief, meet together at the moment of hope,
when, in the midnight of despair, behind the backs of everyone there,
life spoke to life like
deep speaks to deep
and gave death its expiration date.
More is here than skin can touch,
but in its touch knows the air is full of
living even after the breath has gone.