Leaking Grief

Leaking Grief

“Help me, O Lord my God! Save me because of your unfailing love.” Psalm 109:26

I have been leaking grief, not all over the place,
not puddles at the bottom of my feet;
but focus on the drips from the driveway to the
front door,
the seals have grown brittle and I can’t find
my bearings.

If I keep my thoughts at bay, I think of nothing.
If I allow my thoughts to stray, all the disrepair
straddles each side of my brain.
If I keep them away, they invade my dreams in
failure (no one shows up for my choir practice);
anger (no one defends the obvious loser);
losing (climbing cliffs with my fingernails);
bankrupt (running out of time and too many die.)

I have been leaking grief for years. You can mark the trail.
Gaze, for more than a moment, my eyes are redline,
oily, the tread is worn to the nub. I will no longer listen
to a single word that suggests

Anyone can overreact to unexpected death.

Take your high words and tell them to the hills;
I need the silence that heals, the fawns and does
that do not roar in the woods. I need the waves
that steal the sand and carry it to islands where survivors
know grief is sometimes a way of life.

Oh, Man of Sorrows! Become acquainted with my grief.

Take your complaints to the county courthouse,
I’m tired of being an eternal caregiver.
Come wrap me in a shawl, light candles for me,
sing the songs from Ireland or Lakota, beat the drums
that let the tears and tongues trickle, the faucet is
broken.

Someone wrote that you cannot support abortion and
be a Christian.
I wonder how you can lock the eyes of mourners,
(“don’t cry” is a lie) when your Leader wept between
the mystery of death and rising.

I am not lying; I have been leaking grief and sighing
for decades. Tomorrow I shall seek the comfort

Of unbelievers who know how to hold my tears in their tissues.

Oh Man of Sorrows, acquainted with my grief.
Oh! grief.