grief/grace

In the current wake of things, in the wax and wane of heartbreak and healing, I've been stuck on this idea of sitting outside the gates of heaven, waiting for a glimpse of the Holy, like the Penvensie children on the shores of Aslan's country, or the beggar outside the city gates of Jerusalem. It helps, somehow, to imagine us in our world, and God in God's world, as if it's just on the other side of the fence, and that someday, someday, the fence will be no more. This week, I've posted three new poems, that all try to encapsulate this imagining, however imperfectly. Thank you for reading, as always. Take courage, sweet friends. You make me brave.

(in response to Jay Wright's poem, Light's Interrupted Amplitude)

It is everywhere, these days. 

In the eyes that peer above the masks I stare at all day long, 
in the way her voice says, “are you coming downstairs?” 
in the harsh words spoken that spill out
because it is too hard, too much to hold 
that kindness seems far, unreachable, impossible. 

One feels the amplitude of grief. 

I woke this morning to the news that Beirut 
is the site of another tragedy, explosions 
and billows of ashes and smoke and their people, 
more of them dead, dying, in the wake. 

Too much to hold, too little to hope for,
we close our eyes and hearts, because how can you 
go on when tragedy meets you, overwhelms you
like waves, one after the other, the tide coming 
in closer and closer, darker and darker, 
over and over.
The world spins, the stars burn, the people 
break. 

One feels the amplitude of grief, the pace 
of oscillating stars, power in place
where time has crossed and left a breathy stain. 

Our hands, because they hurt with the effort to hold 
ourselves together, snap open. We collapse, weightless, 
untethered, floating in a fog that mars our vision, 
blinding us, leaving us alone in the darkness, swirling 
in the current of despair. 
And then, a push, 
a hand on our back, arms under the crook 
of our knees, and we rise, again. 
Cool air in our lungs, 
and ground under our feet. 
A mercy, this rescue. 

A body needs the weight and thrust of grace. 

So again, I make my way along the edge, following the footsteps, 
and the whispers. 
You do, too.