Grief;

How deep is your well,
Kept clean in a garden,
Why do you empathize,
with grief,
as if you could fly by,
and catch them on your hooks,
to carry them to the distant morning,
with heroic stamina.
Your horizon is red like her,
Egypt,
your hollow waiting,
your distant sun,
your ocean of patient grief,
the weight of planets,
is perhaps just a channel to Tuscany.
-floating-
This happy accident happened to you,
like a car crash, and then another slower one,
as more has passed than can come, passed middle age,
as you wither, because you're more careful,
but also because the branches sway,
the willow blossoms, and time will steal you from me.
You're awfully humble,
to be a passenger and gracefully wither,
with all your mindful might,
and bear the thought of what could have been;
a joyful child in his father's arms.
How deep is your well,
while Tuscany sleeps,
while the beach combers pick the glass from the sand,
that you yourself chewed so she would not cut herself,
dear Tuscany, who thinks only of herself,
who had to be reached by your well, so you grew so thin,
to touch her toes, and wash away again,
as the willow branch waves goodbye,
as a baby to a stranger driving by.
A winter well someday,
A dry well,
A forgotten well, a stone circle, another child's footsteps,
Another life alive, burning joy, born after you passed by,
to live having never met you.
Your lineage, dry,
wet by some other loving grief.
Long are the teeth in your mouth,
Long are the echoes of joyful children playing in the school ground,
which is your bell blessing,
that you ring when you arrive.
Passenger,
Driver,
Man child.



-cb