Grief Can Be a Sunflower

 

Grief  can be the sunflower delivered
by a smiling friend,
that inexplicably begins to die that very minute,
leaves drooping, head tucking under its chin,
giving up, leaf by wilting leaf,
because the world is broken, and too hot,
its roots too tightly packed
for water to reach its faltering heart.
Grief can also be the bouquet of cut sunflowers
I bring home from the CoOp
and put in the tall green vase,
to cheer me as I add one more loss
to all the others, and remember
that the world, though suffering,
is also beautiful.

Grief becomes everything with age,
laced through the heartbreaking beauty
that is this world, this life, and death, all passing,
the shine, the wonder, sunrises, sunsets,
laughter and tears and love come and gone ~
earth grief for a planet in distress,
and our culpability/inability
to restore what has been lost

loss upon loss, the heaviness,
us learning how to plant our feet
and strengthen our shoulders to bear it.
Not giving up like the sunflower,
setting our roots down deep,
strengthening our stance,
accepting pain is the price of being fully alive:
gratitude for all of this life and love -
the richness of it! The gifts.
Joy woven through the sadness.
Sadness woven through with joy-
gilt-edged, and fraught,
and yet still remembering
how to dream.

Then I went to the beach and let the waves sing their song of forever to me. An elderly and rather chubby bassett hound turned himself upside down on the sand, paws in the air, snout lying flat on the sand, totally blissed out. It made my day!