153 Sorrow and grieving poems

During the day I play at drowning looking for the smoke of eyelashes and faded hair the lilac shadows of blood and the ruins of coffee but a night I dream of the last syllable in my mother's heart the last red word in her lungs.

’inept’ipéecwise cilaakt: (I am wanting to) hold a wake / (I am wanting to) hold the body Had this body been made of nothing but its bright skeleton & autumn- blown skin I would shut my eyes into butterfly wings on a mapped earth. Had the gods even their own gods, I could re- learn the very shape of my face in a puddle of sky- colored rain. Extinction is to the hands as the lips are to the first gesture the tongue carves into the slick mouth just before prayer. In every way the world fails to light the soft inner machine & marrow of the bones in motion — I imagine smudging my tongue along a wall like the chest I dare to plunge in- to, the Braille of every node blooming out as if the first day- light of wintered snowfall. This night — like any fleshed boy I dream of a lyre strung with the torn hair of hímiin& in place of my dried mouth — there it is. Whispers in the blue-black dark after c’álalal c’álalal reach out toward my teeth to strum this wilting instrument. & once awake, I’m holding its frame to build a window back in- to the world. Had this body been held after all these years, I would enter you to find my frozen self & touch. Like the gutted animal we take in offering. & live.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

Untitled, from the Silueta series, 1980, by Ana Mendieta has appeared to the mountain dwellers, her grief  engraved where stone softens to clay. Keep your eyes sharp for a dagger. In its hilt, you’ll find her face pressed to the earth’s cheek. Kiss this sacred spot before the rains wash it away like her orphaned feet. Notched heart cradles a planet heavy with night- mares flying into empty mouths. Listen for their thirsty murmurs. She’ll push her ponderous child into the dew of  a San Felipe dawn, name him Salvador. They’ll rest beneath a web spun umbilical, eclipsed from our human eyes. • Our Lady stone             clay earth rain orphaned heart eclipsed

I had a little Sorrow, Born of a little Sin, I found a room all damp with gloom And shut us all within; And, "Little Sorrow, weep," said I, "And, Little Sin, pray God to die, And I upon the floor will lie And think how bad I've been!" Alas for pious planning — It mattered not a whit! As far as gloom went in that room, The lamp might have been lit! My Little Sorrow would not weep, My Little Sin would go to sleep — To save my soul I could not keep My graceless mind on it! So up I got in anger, And took a book I had, And put a ribbon on my hair To please a passing lad. And, "One thing there's no getting by — I've been a wicked girl," said I; "But if I can't be sorry, why, I might as well be glad!"

Her life was dwarfed, and wed to blight, Her very days were shades of night, Her every dream was born entombed, Her soul, a bud,—that never bloomed.

Foweles in the frith, The fisses in the flod, And I mon waxe wod; Mulch sorwe I walke with For best of bon and blod.

This bald year, frozen now in February. This cold day winging over the ugly Imperfect horizon line, So often a teeth line of ten buildings. A red flag flapping In the wind. An orange curtain is noon. It all hurts her eyes. This curtain is so bright. Here is what is noticeably true: sight. The face that looks back from the side Of the butter knife. A torn-bread awkwardness. The mind makes its daily pilgrimage Through riff-raff moments. Then, Back into the caprice case to dream In a circle, a pony goes round. The circle's association: There's a center To almost everything but never Any certainty. Nothing is More malleable than a moment. We were Only yesterday breathing in a sea. Some summer sun Asked us over and over we went. The sand was hot. We were only yesterday tender hearted Waiting. To be something. A spring. And then someone says, Sit down, We have a heart for you to forget. A mind to suffer With. So, experience. So, the circus tent. You, over there, you be the girl In red sequins on the front of a card selling love. You, over there, you, in black satin. You be the Maiden's Mister Death.

Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended, Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended? Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended! This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears. My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears, Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal; How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years, When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers, Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

The fist clenched round my heart loosens a little, and I gasp brightness; but it tightens again. When have I ever not loved the pain of love? But this has moved past love to mania. This has the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of unreason, before plunging howling into the abyss. Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.