How do you find solace in grief?

April 6, 2014  |  ibrainmapadmin

I wonder how others find solace in grief?

These last few days, grief has been my constant companion. Friday we shared a beautiful celebration for our beloved friend Karen. Her music will always live in our hearts.

Today my “little brother” Jim would have been 52. We will always remember his grin.

I find solace in trees or Nature, and words, and wonder how others find solace in their grief? This is for all those who are experiencing grief at the moment.

This morning I took my sorrow to the trees. I stood still and small and bowed my head before the wide silence and craggy peace of eucalyptus trees. Tears fell to ground like dark flecks of rain in a forever desert. Sand and dust wrapped around the damp moment too fast to wet the earth. I drank the solace of the tall trees and big earth, leaning into my Mothers’ soft arms like a prayer.

And a draft of my poem for all my friends who share this grief.

Grief defying Rita 6.4.14

Grief tosses me, limp rag, against the wall – sodden.

I slide to the floor – crumpled.

A gash through black night – tearing.

Grief, a sniper holding hostage a random street,

I stand in the crossfire.

Bullets of tears smack my face and jolt my stomach in spasms

that leave me trembling in the corner,

a howl stuck in my throat – choking.

I stop and forget what I’m doing, get lost in the hallway,

walking through mirrors and smoke,

glimpsing yesterday in yesterdays smoky days.

The hard ache, knotted and twined through all the sweet memories of you,

wraps itself around my boney heart.

I stumble towards the longing for sleep’s forgetfulness,

and pull the pillow over my face.

Words grow through the night of fretful sleep,

tangled with dreams of a dark prince,

staining my mind with bursts of seed,

that swallow the raw hunger of my soul.

I wake to strange loveliness of day outside the window

creeping soft, uninvited, tremulous and warm

into my cold bed, pressing into chill fingers and aching bones.

The magpie sings her morning in.

Her beautiful song, a hard remembering of this strange ordinary.

I look up.

My bruised heart aches to see dawn’s loveliness

with black night still in my skin.

Grief stands large and sullen at the window,

blocking out the sun.

I want to cry out, “too soon,” “not fair,”

but those old words fall like leaves in Autumn,

blown in the restless wind of monotony.

At last, fresh words wake, a balm of warmth crackling my heart,

And I write them down in slow thaw.

Fingers ache where frost has bitten deep,

Bones thaw and drip cool words,

like lines of lonely ants pinned to the page,

carrying an antelope of feeling on small backs.

Tiny letters stinging the white page and holding the skin of white wonder

that cannot sing, too fat to fly, lies thick and hard against the whiteness,

defying grief.