The Depths
There is a flatness to grief.
It is still, like a lake
yet endless, oceans deep.
There is a prominence in its weight
a body holding so much life
with oxygen, bubbling
yet suffocating
rim to rim.
Life lurks below
as the world reflects on its thinnest surface.
The water doesn't fall
it sits
Voices glide, skaters on its surface
As souls we knew, have gone
left behind,
in a lake of loss,
we drift.
untitled
When silence comes
thoughts glide
with such ease
to you
unspoken truths
ring out
emotions flood
When the clatter
finally ceases
I fold inwards
Breathe stuttering
gone
knocked down,
completely floored
the loss hits me, afresh.
Surely, you weren’t gone
until this moment
with my hands deep in washing up,
you left.
The Sky
I gaze
for hours
at the sky
nothing but the sky
the clouds, the light
I am so small
am I, am I
No matter the formation
of the clouds
the weather
or the mood
the sky, the sky
my god
my reason why
the sky.
Someone once loved this garden
Someone once loved this garden
they filled its borders with all they knew
tending its rebirth, each spring
they sat and gazed out patiently.
their one true love, died
and they wept as they knelt and they dug
out the sorrow
cleaving it from the earth
leaving traces under fingernails
it rubbed knees and bent backs into agony
but each spring though neglected
any gardener would know,
that someone
once loved
this garden.
When I grieve I garden
Silver spider unearthed
Crossed branches twist
Garden gloves snipped
As the year turns
For what it’s worth
Pawing a plot to rest
A heavy spade
A beaten heart
Grieving past
and never was
The heaviest of seasons
Tomorrows turned in soil
Regrets rotted in leaves
A blanket of winter
Protect crumbling heart
Black on first glance
A rich layer of death
green
shoots
buried
within.
Who tells her what she is
The roses aren’t quivering in the gentle breeze
They’re swaying raucously in the wind
I’m under her canopy and she spits a bud at me
Wakens me from day dreams
Avoiding everything
Hiding on my swing
The wind is fragrant,
Thick summer heat turned earth
to full volume
as plants guzzle back water
and the climber throttles anything he meets
The rose, she quietens
but never sleeps
Sleeping Bats
A guilt on top of grief
they were not mine
what is?
Not the magpie,
or its song
the paper, or its folded edge
I sigh
squeeze air from far corners of my lungs
yet grief still sticks
a curled bat sleeping,
in the quiet of my soul.
For people are not possessions
relationships are not fixed
as light, they move, they multiply,
they dance,
they drift,
they shift.