341 Grief poems

At dawn the panther of the heavens peers over the edge of the world. She hears the stars gossip with the sun, sees the moon washing her lean darkness with water electrified by prayers. All over the world there are those who can't sleep, those who never awaken. My granddaughter sleeps on the breast of her mother with milk on her mouth. A fly contemplates the sweetness of lactose. Her father is wrapped in the blanket of nightmares. For safety he approaches the red hills near Thoreau. They recognize him and sing for him. Her mother has business in the house of chaos. She is a prophet dis- guised as a young mother who is looking for a job. She appears at the door of my dreams and we put the house back together. Panther watches as human and animal souls are lifted to the heavens by rain clouds to partake of songs of beautiful thunder. Others are led by deer and antelope in the wistful hours to the vil- lages of their ancestors. There they eat cornmeal cooked with berries that stain their lips with purple while the tree of life flickers in the sun. It's October, though the season before dawn is always winter. On the city streets of this desert town lit by chemical yellow travelers search for home. Some have been drinking and intimate with strangers. Others are escapees from the night shift, sip lukewarm coffee, shift gears to the other side of darkness. One woman stops at a red light, turns over a worn tape to the last chorus of a whispery blues. She has decided to live another day. The stars take notice, as do the half-asleep flowers, prickly pear and chinaberry tree who drink exhaust into their roots, into the earth. She guns the light to home where her children are asleep and may never know she ever left. That their fate took a turn in the land of nightmares toward the sun may be untouchable knowledge. It is a sweet sound. The panther relative yawns and puts her head between her paws. She dreams of the house of panthers and the seven steps to grace.

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations It was not Death, for I stood up, And all the Dead, lie down - It was not Night, for all the Bells Put out their Tongues Tongues The clappers inside of the bells , for Noon. It was not Frost, for on my Flesh I felt Siroccos Siroccos Hot winds. The Emily Dickinson Lexicon includes definitions from the American Dictionary of the English Language (1844): “A pernicious wind that blows from the south-east in Italy, called the Syrian wind. It is said to resemble the steam from the mouth of an oven.” - crawl - Nor Fire - for just my marble feet Could keep a Chancel, Chancel The section near the altar of a church cool - And yet, it tasted, like them all, The Figures I have seen Set orderly, for Burial Reminded me, of mine - As if my life were shaven, And fitted to a frame, And could not breathe without a key, And ’twas like Midnight, some - When everything that ticked - has stopped - And space stares - all around - Or Grisly frosts - first Autumn morns, Repeal the Beating Ground - But most, like Chaos - Stopless - cool - Without a Chance, or spar spar The top mast of a ship - Or even a Report of Land - To justify - Despair.

We stopped to watch the accident. Fire! It had finally come to pass. Just as surely as I was a coward carrying a wolf. It stepped out from me, it was paradise leaving me, running towards the giant idea of that melting house. So often you don’t think, “Little nicks of monstrosity, I shall be splendid in it.”

Hildegard believed A woman’s brain drew Heat to itself, drew seed From a man all the way up The spine’s long stair The stake bracing the spine Licking all the way orange, Red, blue — shut it — And why not? My brain has been Hungry all this time.

What none knows is when, not if. Now that your life nears its end when you turn back what you see is ruin. You think, It is a prison. No, it is a vast resonating chamber in which each thing you say or do is new, but the same.What none knows is how to change. Each plateau you reach, if single, limited, only itself, in- cludes traces of  all the others, so that in the end limitation frees you, there is no end, if   you once see what is there to see. You cannot see what is there to see — not when she whose love you failed is standing next to you. Then, as if refusing the know- ledge that life unseparated from her is death, as if again scorning your refusals, she turns away. The end achieved by the unappeased is burial within. Familiar spirit, within whose care I grew, within whose disappointment I twist, may we at last see by what necessity the double-bind is in the end the  figure  for human life, why what we love is precluded always by something else we love, as if each no we speak is yes, each yes no. The prospect is mixed but elsewhere the forecast is no better. The eyrie where you perch in exhaustion has food and is out of  the wind, if cold. You feel old, young, old, young: you scan the sea for movement, though the promise of  sex or food is the prospect that bewildered  you to this end. Something in you believes that it is not the end. When you wake, sixth grade will start. The finite you know you fear is infinite: even at eleven, what you love is what you should not love, which endless bullies in- tuit unerringly. The future will be different: you cannot see the end. What none knows is when, not if.

’Cause it’s alright, alright to see a ghost. — The National Rock quartz next to a fence with upturned faces. On the hill, on the other side a storm, or plausibly, you. Time keeps its footsteps regular until it is clapped upwards: a falcon glides into view. Dissolving into the pool in a splash of white, I saw you. In summer, the town goes to the drive-in. The edges of the coin keep moving as I stare at images through goggles, they fog out. Rooms go to pieces, sometimes, quietly. Curtains are no longer red, now they’re dusty. The cat moves. The room turns ocher and shifts, as wind blows through. O Brecht’s sky of streaming blue. It’s been days since I opened the book my face is watching. Cupboards slam in another part of the flat. The room reassembles, but it’s different now — outdated.

Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun And ready, thou, to die with him, Thou watchest all things ever dim And dimmer, and a glory done: The team is loosen'd from the wain, The boat is drawn upon the shore; Thou listenest to the closing door, And life is darken'd in the brain. Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, By thee the world's great work is heard Beginning, and the wakeful bird; Behind thee comes the greater light: The market boat is on the stream, And voices hail it from the brink; Thou hear'st the village hammer clink, And see'st the moving of the team. Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name For what is one, the first, the last, Thou, like my present and my past, Thy place is changed; thou art the same.

The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul? Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear, I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.

When on my bed the moonlight falls, I know that in thy place of rest By that broad water of the west, There comes a glory on the walls: Thy marble bright in dark appears, As slowly steals a silver flame Along the letters of thy name, And o'er the number of thy years. The mystic glory swims away; From off my bed the moonlight dies; And closing eaves of wearied eyes I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray: And then I know the mist is drawn A lucid veil from coast to coast, And in the dark church like a ghost Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn.

“Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum.” — Ps. ci. Wintertime nighs; But my bereavement-pain It cannot bring again: Twice no one dies. Flower-petals flee; But, since it once hath been, No more that severing scene Can harrow me. Birds faint in dread: I shall not lose old strength In the lone frost's black length: Strength long since fled! Leaves freeze to dun; But friends can not turn cold This season as of old For him with none. Tempests may scath; But love can not make smart Again this year his heart Who no heart hath. Black is night's cope; But death will not appal One who, past doubtings all, Waits in unhope.