Sacred Grief Song
Sacred Grief Song
This grief
is a sacred song
I hold dear for the rest of my life
I find myself humming
at unexpected moments
flashes of you arise
you are here
a flicker
a flame
that lives eternally
(this love)
beyond space and time
ever-near
ever-after
This grief does not go away
I cannot wish it away
(do not want to)
for it is inextricably connected
to our love
profoundly
and as unbreakable
as water is to
wave is to
Ocean
Irisis
And yes death is a leaving
but there are a million ways
you never go away
Each time I think of you
Each moment I grieve
is an act of lasting love
Each exquisite tear is a small glass house
with a view into infinity
and a tiny seed dropping into the earth
of this human realm
and all the ways that you still live
take root right here, now
and there is an endless walkable
wide open wilderness
we all stand in the midst of
and we can reach out and feel as you emerge
as real as the soft petals of bright faced Irises
as cool to the touch as their tough emerald stems
& fountain of leaves reaching up, up, up
to the light like always
The Remembering
Each year the anniversary of your death comes
we sense it in our bones
the acuteness of loss is never forgotten
but time is a fog like gauze
around the original wound
giving the slightest distance
as healing takes place
Our bodies know what to do
and one day
the place where you were cut from us
is no longer gaping
It has come together
forms a beautiful silvery scar
we run our fingers along
surprised by the softness
and its strange supple shine
The season, autumn
the shortening days
the light becomes less and less
a steady descent to winter
The smells of decay
letting go
the once lush green leaves
turned to flashes of bright colors
and falling fade to brown
swallowed up by earth
for a future distant season of rebirth
It is a familiar closet
in a dream I’ve been in many times
I know where everything is
but it is dark
I don’t know where the light switch is
or perhaps it is burned out
and I can’t see anything clearly
yet still
I feel you everywhere
Remembering is to touch your existence
and know it is as close as ever
even after all these years
You are Gone
When your death comes
its announcement rolls off the tongue
a freight train suddenly emerges from a tunnel
We know death comes for all of us
but still sends tiny shockwaves
an electrocution of all we have known
And we hear the stone of your life drop, heavy
the space between leaving a hand and when
it hits the water of this well we are all standing above
We look over the edge
into the hollow throat of darkness
hear the splash
the sound before the sinking into a bottomless depth
I picture the ripples, know they are there
although none of us can see them
only feel their force in the face of the unknown
There is a stillness, a suspendedness
a bird floating on the wind, effortlessly
You are held by something invisible, powerful
A kite to which the string has been pulled from our hands
you fly, now untethered
We watch and wail and try to grasp
at the minuscule thread we thought connected you to us
now we can see the mirage of our belonging
and know something much greater holds us together
The Letting Go
It's in me
my body
the holding on in my cells
clenching
for death to not be true
for you to still be with us
I grasp onto the cracked open
empty carcass
of the caterpillar
and cry
as if it is you
Yet I know you are now a butterfly
floating across the infinite sky
your wings vibrant, brushed
with all the colors
you dreamed of as a little girl
You emerge finally
free from the pain
that held you
now weightless
you fly
effortless, limitless
Resting in the place
that is placeless
in the endless light
that was in you all along
that saturates your existence
visible and invisible
utterly boundless
eternally with us
Grief Prayer
I press up against this loss
with my whole body
my cheek, my hands against this cold window
on a door closing me into
this dark room
My sobs caught in my throat
like a nest of blue Robin’s eggs
grief a momma bird sitting on top
warming, comforting, protecting
Until it is time
this sadness in me
like baby birds pushing with
all of their might to get out
eggs cracking open
rattling with the beautiful
noise of new life
The sounds of grief
are an opening, a release that
transcends time
loud as the pain song sung of every mother
during birth, the knowing that many
others have been here before,
have done this, too
I cry & cry
Our bodies know what to do
to heal
convulsing, pushing, breath
tears like a million little wings flapping
tiny bodies rising up from their nest
a miraculous offering of gratitude
and eternal love
lifting up into the great light of life
that connects us all