trust

by

My Grief

I’ve heard it said that grief has stages
that it’s a process

my grief is a list

my grief is a blow to the chest, standing breathless in a doorway
an hour late
a strange smell
too few seats

shock

my grief is an abandoned garden, earth cleared ready for planting
no hand to dig
words released
gifts to the soil

tears

my grief is a dark room, eyes open staring into the night
an empty cup
a silent promise

numb

my grief is a heavy cloak, a conflicted weave of threads
a weight I drag behind me
a burden I cling to

safe

my grief is hungry
it eats my sleep
it eats my dreams
it asks too much

my grief is a second blow, standing barefoot in the driveway
a familiar voice, unfamiliar confusion
forgotten actions
forgotten words

remote

my grief is sympathetic, falling into old habits
searching for an open a door
an open hand
a smile

calm

my grief is a locked box, the key long gone
unanswered questions
unresolved history
uncertain future

regret              

my grief is a lesson
in patience and trust
learning to wait
to give my mind time to adjust and make new connections
to give my heart time to accept the loss
to become used to this new truth

accept

my grief is fickle
it will begin to lose interest
it will stop paying attention
it won’t notice when I look the other way
it will start hunting elsewhere to be entertained

relief

and when it does
I will leave the house
stand in the rain
and breathe

lost birds settle on my shoulders

when I go inside
I see what grief has left for me on the table
photos
old china
and memories

©clairegriffin2020

by

this imaginal space – draft pt.viii

there are nights when you are invisible
and imagining where you are when the sky is dark
is the beginning of all our fireside stories
while I wait in this imaginal space
I shift beyond the tangible
into realms of intuition and myth

darkness turns to light
and every time you return you affirm my trust
the endless cycle of renewal is the beginning of love

 

©clairegriffin2017

by

eye to eye

When she was young, she was abandoned,
she was pregnant, she was making do,
wary and opportunistic.

She was found, she was ill, her babies died,
and I had just seen the movie based on the life of Frida Kahlo,
when I saw this small, thin, lost soul in a cage,
for sale, marked down, half price.
Frida she was then, in an instant.

She came home with me.
She was half-wild, wouldn’t be held,
ate fast and then straight outside.
We found she’d made the compost bin her bed.

But she brought us gifts in those early times,
daily mice, some dead, some alive,
and three arranged in the driveway
like an installation artwork.

There was the rat, that looked like someone’s pet.
There was the tui, injured, flapping,
that I drowned in a bucket, while I cried
and she stretched out in the sun

There was the day I realised she was using mirrors
as a way of watching and staying safe.
There was the day she walked into the room and stopped,
and looked, eye to eye, heart to heart.
It proved to me, that patience is worth it, that patience heals.
Two years of waiting evaporated in her eyes.

Today she sleeps.
She sleeps and when she’s not sleeping, she wants to eat.
Having an appetite is a good thing.

And she has developed the habit of scratching the sofa, or trying to.
It’s a dance now, that we both share.
She stretches out a paw and looks my way.
I say no, and her leg lowers. She holds eye contact.
After all these years, she uses her eyes to get what she wants.

I move to the kitchen and squeeze cat food from the packet.
She eats, she climbs on me, and sleeps.

She knows who I am now.
She snores a little
and every breath
is the sound of trust.

Frida

©clairegriffin2017