Another poem on grief

Boy - O! I sure do wish I could write more when I'm feeling happy. I do feel happy often, but then I do other things. Knit, cook, dance, exercise, hike ... you know. I might even have to rename this blog. Surely the byline is wrong. I had no time to write last year while I taught. Anyway, let's think on that. Here's another lament to keep you honest.

When I sat down
to read the poems
I will teach next week,
sadness sat down, too,
and suddenly I had to write,
speak directly to Grief, my old friend.

I began a few words on this page,
but sounds formed under water are never clear.
Fog refracts, disperses light.

What happened to that string
I was holding on to?
I knit my way through the month of December,
but now, just a few blocks away
from the 2-year anniversary of her death,
to walk forward is to enter the desert,
where she is always beyond the dunes.

If I could leave her a note in the sand,
it would say
"Please,"
because I live with the regret
of not having asked her
to reconsider her life
just one more time,
for me.

But this tissue-paper wish
was as useless during her life
as it is in this poem.
The generational stream only flows in one direction.

When I asked my brother the other day
how he is doing, he replied:
"I try not to think about it."
At least I have this grief.