The Rules of Engaging Grief

One morning last week I recalled for some reason the daily walks I would take early in the morning from my home in West Virginia up a steep hill about a mile distant.  It was soon after my spouse had passed.  These walks served in retrospect the healing process. I want to share a poem I wrote recently that commemmorates this ritual. For more clarification on the “groans,” see Praying Fingertips for January 12.

“Tunnel Darkness”

There is a hill out there
To climb each morning
In grief - aloneness.

Stiff steps in frost crunch
A somber drum roll
For one departed.

Higher and higher
Bent he works his way
Under sorrow’s burden.

Relentless trudging
To high summit
As groans escape,

Deep groans of sadness,
Into frosty air
Of gray-dawn shades.

Alone atop above,
He pauses - surveys
All before him past,

Just as bright glow -
The sunrise sudden -
Diffuses chilled fear,

Heals this soul once
Awash in a tunnel
Darkness of despair.