Grief-poem

I wrote the following Grief-poem when I was thinking (and deeply feeling) about my friend, whose young-adult daughter had died in a car accident, and a client whose 2 children had died within one year.

I was also reflecting on the loss of my infant son years earlier. I began wondering what I had wanted or needed when I was grieving - and what I could offer to my friend and my client in their grief. This poem is a result of that reflecting.

I was unable to come up with a title that "fit" the poem. My friend Terri, whose soulful art work you can see at bone-sigh arts.com, and her sons - gave the poem the name Diamonds. It fits.

I thought that my role was

        to hold up a lantern

                 in the dark,

                        subterranean

                               labrynths.

Shine you the path

        until your eyesight

                 adjusted

                        and you could take it

                               on your own.

Turns out that my role is

        to sit with you

                 naked,

                        in the cold,

                               pitch

                                                dark

                 on the rim of a yawning chasm.

And, at times, to move with you

        our foreheads glistening with fear,

                 clammy hands clasped together -

                        backs to the wall

                             groping our way,

    occasionally stubbing our toes on diamonds.