Flirting with Grief

It's the season where the veil is thin between the worlds. Those who have left us linger. We may be  present to our lives now, in this moment, living as  if to compensate for their lack.

Personally, this week brings the anniversary of the death of a brother and the death of my mother, as well as my birthday and my father’s.  It's a poignant time for me.

 How are you as you wander close to the edge?

The Thing Is

By Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.