There is more than one kind of grief—
In word and in deed.
As grief is love,
so too, we perceive.
So two, in love’s harsh debacle,
“The heart often wants”
what the heart cannot have—
No logic—
Just a presence, a “place”
No person
Sacred attachments to
time and space
All the choices, the needs,
The wants and the desires
All in one context—
From the pan into the fire.
Not just a person,
But a promise and a plan
A chemical reaction,
Until it all hits the fan . . .
A crack, a compound fracture
How it stings in every cell
Enduring his rage in ruptures
And their surprise, a raw hell.
We had all that. Or I thought it was true.
I tried too hard—ignored what I knew
So much in common
but nothing alike
My heart was heavy –
just too exhausted to fight.
After three and a half decades,
A Facebook fairytale now?
Incredulous, amazed.
Kind of a wow!
Out of nowhere,
out of the blue,
out of the shadows?
Something that’s new.
Clandestine from that very first day.
It felt so giddy, what is his play?
Our own lives were fragile.
So tattered, so frayed.
I wanted to help him, but what could I say?
I’ve heard grief is how we get to our truth,
and no thread can mend our chasm,
our hard-won youth.
So, no more hopes, no more plans,
No vows to sever.
Falling in—and falling apart.
Our always—becomes never.
Elaine Gantz Wright 