heart, i have lent
you to grief
for long enough.
no, there is nothing
wrong with grief,
but for now i have
been given only this
one heart,
and it ought not stay
swollen in looking pools
for its entirety.
grief, you are
golden on the hills?
you are ochre
on the plains?
the rust, the rust
at shoreline, refuse
from human endeavor gone
stale, grief you are
rust orange and glowing
at the round lip of
receding tide?
heart i have not
abandoned you,
though i am unsure
how to handle you.
my hands
have been instructed
to toil and to grasp.
perhaps you seek
an open palm?
an offering of both
acceptance and
permission to float?
heart, have you
found yourself?
can you come out from
under your layering,
indigo and dusty
golden trim?
there is a house,
wooden and small,
its sides painted indigo,
its doors and window frames,
dusty, golden,
yellow.
this house sits
on a small spit,
frozen mid-flight in its
slow approach to sea.
sea, breathing sea,
its timeless motion
lending us a way
to mark passage;
indigo paint to paint
chip to bare wood.
house on a spit, spit
to spittle, ocean
to tide pool.
heart,
wrapped in grief,
indigo and pale,
dusty,
golden,
yellow.
a hand holds
tightly to what
it does not want
to let go.
let go,
a heart needs
an open palm to
remember itself free.
this water is so full
of hearts, many
broken or crushed or
stunned to a numbing,
oblong,
hum.
how can we feel
so alone,
when we are
all of us
so full?
how can this water
drown us,
when we all make it
so full?
a mind
mutters and fidgets,
anxious at the concept
of emptiness. emptiness,
a womb, waits
without bother, without
pain. patiently,
eventually,
eventually,
eventually,
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