I am searching, searching for the vertical line in me,
the epicenter of the spiral to carry me upward.
It’s hard to dance the curved avenue to bliss,
when your brain is ruined.

I am ready.

Did you see me by the grave, 
low notes railing from my bird-caged heart,
the train of melody inching skyward, 
my toes dangling at the edge of the dug site?

Were you listening?

I tried to climb aboard the clefs, but they were fragile, 
and I awkward and weighty. I reach for them still, 
but they slide from my sweat-painted palm--
the noteheads, the stems, the flags—wriggle and fall away. 

Did you catch one with your eye?

I comb for the keynote at that crypt to sing stories 
to understand myself that I may coil 
in the helix of ecstasy, whirl to a free, high place 
where like the blue-tongued giraffe, I will see everything.  

Why do you pray for me to wake?

Speak to my soul, it is wrestling with gravity,
struggling to writhe from these flesh-clad bones. 
I hear you, your voice, my name. 
I am here, you just can’t see me.

Let me go, let me feel whole.
                        

It is the last song suspended that keeps us sleepless, 
tossing in our beds at night, 
that refrain wanting to sing, choked silent by wind.
It’s the ballad crooned for choosing to be human, 
lyrics lost the moment we inhaled earth’s breath.

Did we not realize the certain suffering of our assignment?

What it would feel like 
to watch the ones we love wither into death?
to carry hope in our bellies to birth heartache?
to read the last note left for us…or no note at all?
to lose our dwelling, our kitchen, our bed?
to empty closets into boxes for the needy
as our loved one’s remains leave in a body bag?

How do we learn to be grateful for this, this grief,
to appreciate that the unsung song is punctuation 
for the interval we share?
How do we remember the joy in the memories we made
when we feel like the last one standing?

We breathe

We learn to cry for the new voice that sings,
for the glitter of stars scattered across our map.
We learn to look for little marvels--
a teardrop of rain clinging to a new leaf unfurling.
We witness the delicate ballet of a rose opening to sun.
We listen for the crescendo of escalating octaves.

We pull bitterness stones from our pockets,
skip them across the gulf, 
watch as they lose pace with each foot sailed, 
sinking among waves washing and honing them
to a smoothness pleasing to hold.


That is the gift of grief, a doorway to a greater you, 
not the one clothed in flesh, but that spark within,
the light that makes your eyes ignite with being,
that part of you that is beyond our dimension.