His jacket.
Left behind, still warm, on that
Stark summer day.
Grief is the new-love
Never known, never held
Hope back to Heaven
Love flown away.
Grief is the long-love
Years spent together, now whittled to minutes--
Cancer ward lips,
Don't know what to say.
Grief is the strong-love
Crossing the ocean
Not expecting - news from a stranger,
While children at play.
Grief is the sorrow for what's lost or won't happen:
Hopes stacked as high mountains,
Cast down, tumbled like towers--
Dreams lost on the way.
Grief hangs like clouds,
Envelopes, surrounds us
Sharp in our hearts,
Like glass in the bay.
*
Hand reaches down
Through the fog, through the rubble.
Hand reaches out,
Will lift us some day.
Joy in the sorrow.
Hope in the hurting.
Hope for tomorrow.
Grief for today.
I have been reflecting lately on grief. There is so much pain in the world today, and it seems we hear of new atrocities or disasters hourly rather than daily, even. Pain worlds-apart seems just that--distant and unrelatable, but there is still the everyday and close sorrow of those around us to consider. This close pain can perhaps give us some perspective on terrors we cannot comprehend.
Jesus wept.
ReplyDeleteThank you for publishing this. It's a beautiful reprieve and makes me remember that Jesus, like Father Dan said, wept too. Our poor old bodies! As the priest in He Leadeth Me said, our bodies will deserve all the rest that they can get when we die, while they wait for the Resurrection of the Dead.
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