Garland

“Garland” was published in the Grief Becomes You.

Grief is a garland around you
in the way you dance in the kitchen
making chocolate cake
one moment and the next

You are on your back tears
shining their way to your earlobes
five-months now since your dad
died too young and broken hearted

The way your intuition
unmasked itself those final hours
knowing exactly what to do
how to forgive, when to let go

Today we eat a spring lunch while
a hummingbird drinks from sage blooms
you are not alone in grief, love
though he was left and riven

Your heart is big and holds him now
holds us all and the pain too, pink as a new scar
big as a field of poppies
the purest thing I know