THE SADNESS

If grief shakes
the body, sadness
pervades it.
I watch, today,
how it permeates
the brain, suffusing
it, quietly, with
something like
peace, something
even a little
like joy.  I watch
how it permeates
the body, with
something like
gentleness, with
even a warmth,
a consolation
that grief lacks.
And I watch
how it numbs
pain, something
like morphine,
how it seeps
with its quiet
omnipresence
into every pore,
into every cell
of the body.
Sadness is given
us to help us
to tolerate grief.