Grief

Is a song
We sing to God
And He sings back
To us.

An aching sonnet
A haunting duet.
A right joining in
With His heart for the world.

A deep running river,
Its colour changing,
Its nuance flowing,
The flow of grief,
Shrinking, growing.
Sometimes lonely, icy and blue.
Like a vein from the brutal Alps.
Sometimes a deep red, dark and sticky
Like Egypt’s ancient curse.
And always, always,
We are scared
We are so scared
Of drowning.

So we keep far away from it
Stay away from the shore of it
Terrified that if we dip-slip into it
We might never come out of it
We might struggle, to no avail,
We might sink in grief, and drown.

But grief is not the greatest
Force that there is
Grief is not the longest road
To traverse
Grief is not the darkness
It is made out to be
It’s just another body
Of water.

So I,
I am learning
To swim and to sing
And I find comfort
In the sacred, prayerful aspects, of grief’s
River Song.

And we choose
To keep singing
Our tears.
And we choose
To keep swimming
Along.
For we do not swim alone,
As we choose
To keep sharing
God’s song.

Miriam Dale

Read more on grief and suffering in this webzine.