Grief poem, with translated lines
from Yosano Akiko and Rilke
Love,
is just a bullshit word
people say
when they’re in pain
when the hurt child inside
cannot bear to be alone
and it feels good
to say it, hear it
til the meanings change
and someone empties
a pocketful of stones
it’s a grief stone, I say
carry it to remind me
of all those I cared for
who are now gone
more true
than any word
It was only
the thin thread of a cloud,
almost transparent,
leading me along the way
like an ancient sacred song
Leaving the mountains behind
I came to the coast
looking for I know not what
some space to feel, heal
to seek a spot where maybe
it could all end
the juncos are here
my friends, ravens too
crossing my view
for the last two hundred miles
what felt like
every time I looked
and Talks With Animals
is dying, and Paul is dying
part of me
dying each day I wake
to this miserable life
can I say that, is it
an honesty most turn from
just another line
as if these poems will ever be
more than little rooms
I hide myself in
so what
if this early November sun
slants through brackish spruce
to the sound of the incoming tide
a raven clicking in the canopy
to light up the cove
in a blinding resplendence
beautiful beyond presence
you can have it
Remember: the hero keeps going, and even his ruin
was only a subterfuge for achieving his final birth
What can I believe in
other than these mountains
rock sculpted
the ravens always close
the knowledge
of ten thousand years
of glacial retreat
abrasion, wedging
tectonic plates lifting
the rocks are older
once the bottom
of an ancient ocean
when it rained
for a millennia
I’m doing it again
pretending these ideas
can wrap me in a comfort
that will keep me
tethered to this earth
when all I long to do
is die
to be with Murphy
high at the mountain’s summit
to not fear the wind
or the snows
to know this world
only in flight, my own body
a tool of the living