Tonight my coworkers asked me, As they always do, “When do you want to take your break?” “I don’t usually take them.” My standard reply. I don’t say why. That some nights the tears are too close. That I love the memories despite the pain they cause, Because they are of you. Because they bring…
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Navigating the gap.
Pema Chödrön often mentions “the gap” in her dharma teachings. It is something that takes us out of our everyday mind and into spaciousness. The gap can be many things, a sudden startle, a trip, a sneeze. Anything that snaps us out of everyday mind and into a moment of openness. Our…
Read MoreGoing on
I work the shift, I work the stove and cook, I email, and give kudos, And all the while I miss you. I weep on my walks with Odie. Such beauty, such tragedy. Wanting to believe, In some supernatural being, Who oversees it all. But it is just the Ides of March, The confusion of…
Read MoreBeautiful Words
I am out of beautiful words. The pain of missing you weighs heavily on me, and I cannot sleep. Nightmares of you, lost or in need, tear at my mind and heart, waking me in a cold sweat, afraid to fall asleep again. Where are you? Should I look toward the stars? In nature? How…
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Dreaming Dan
I dreamed of you again last night. You were a just a boy, eyes bright with promise, and hope. I hugged your small body to mine, then held you out with my hands to look at you, to take in all that I can no longer see in my waking life. I…
Read MoreLast Rites
You lay before me, so still Skin pallid, and lips the blue of twilight. Your face inaminate, No quirked eyebrow or mischievous smile. Your absence is still incomprehensible In the light of this terrible morning. I kiss your cool forehead, Thinking of the trials and turmoil, Of this path of pain we travelled together. When…
Read MoreTorn
Maybe if you are very sensitive, Mourning must tear you apart, And fling the pieces far away, Leaving you broken for a time, Difficult, defensive, vulnerable, fragile, Until enough time passes for the ground of your being to Become fertile again in darkness, To draw its’ precious nutrients into your heart, To fill your empty…
Read MoreThe Empty Well
Grief is an empty well, where the voice of the beloved echoes but cannot be answered. Grief is the silent sky, after lightening cracks open the heavens, and thunder shakes the earth. Grief is grasping, for something you can no longer hold, that is just out of reach. Grief is heavy, austere and grim as…
Read MoreFor Dan
I don’t know how to say goodbye to you my dearest and I don’t know how to greet a life without you. Dew fogs the grass as the pink light of sunrise floods through the windows. I listen for the sounds of you in this still morning the quiet of your absence surrounding me. You…
Read MoreAnother day without you.
Bitter, the absence of you, the taste of loss in my mouth. Missing you so it feels my soul will break apart. Just a box of you on the mantle in the living room, a trace of you, but not. I don’t know yet how to mine the beauty of your life, to find the…
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