THE GRIEF

It's physical.  It hits
at unpredictable moments
like the aftershocks
that follow the great earthquake,
sometimes nothing but a tremor,
at others, threatening to strike
with all the force
of the original event
or greater...

It feels almost as if
someone had walked out
and slammed the door, hard,
leaving me behind, alone,
in shock; and that someone
was someone that I loved
and who loved me;
leaving me pondering
what seems so utterly
beyond comprehension.

It's this abandonment
that hurts.  I tell myself:
be Buddhist, just don't
cling to grief, just sit
in quiet contemplation
of its passage, and wait
the tremor out. The pain
will pass, I tell myself;
the ground begins to settle
slowly under me each time
it strikes.

              And yet the pain
persists, the ground stills
only for so long before
the next great seismic shrug
occurs, reminding me
of the power of all that
I am not given to understand.
And the grief returns.