Grief: A Color in the Blanket

You know that brown
like a heather brown,
color of the fields just before snow arrives.
There’s some morning light
washing over it. Beautiful, one
must lull in it, make it part of
the giant picture.

We don’t want to embrace grief.
We want to rub it off our skin
as fast as we can.
When we think she might be
driving near, we want to hide in our
neighbor’s house until she goes away,
laughing, joking and drinking,
pretending we don’t see her sitting
there waiting for us by the kitchen
window like the ghost that Daddy saw
nightly across the way in the Ryan’s house.

But we need to embrace her
We need to call her up
Ask her to come spend a night
Feel her veil as we listen to Mahler.
She is very important to us.
She is a major part of who we are
If we ignore her, we leave caverns in our own
selves to fall into,
get caught in the dark.

She is the grey of a July
foggy evening when you are
trying to see the sandpipers
hop along the tide line.
She is gentle and can lull you
into silent tears, silent pain.

She is the dark blue black of 2 a.m.
in winter when the moon is new.
The temperature increasingly colder,
she grabs your ears
pushes through your pants,
tightening your thighs,
pinching your toes,
your nose and your belly.

Remember grief climbs up your trellis
uncontrollably when you ignore her.