Sitting with Grief

Who is fooling whom?
Grief hides,
until it jumps out of the closet
and yells Gotcha!
Hiding from myself
something part of me
doesn’t want to know,
something one part
refuses to remember—
grief is intricate like that.
When I think I’m finished,
I attend an opera, raw emotion
floods me with the music.
Loss looms sudden and gigantic,
punches my chest with its iron tsunami.
Shocked, I totter, stagger—
equilibrium once more a joke.

When I scrabble my way
back to standing balance,
when I have banished again,
the sadness with no solution,
the sorrow that can only
become a companion—
I may fool myself once more
that grief is done.
For sitting with sadness
is grueling work.

Sitting with grief
I need a glass of water beside me,
for the work parches the heart.
Sitting with sorrow,
I must have a cushion that is firm,
for it will be a lengthy sit.
Sitting with sadness
I cannot fool myself,
for grief is my clearest mirror.
I will look deep!
For facing loss
may bring me, before I die,
to lift my mouth in a slim smile
at the beauty that remains.

©Susa Silvermarie 2017