CHEATING GRIEF

photoart: ralph murre

Cheating Grief
by Christine Swanberg

Should you find yourself un-sprung
by grief, like cranking gears
of the old grandfather clock
you must rewind forward each half hour
no matter what the time,
know: You can’t cheat grief.
If so, you’d skip a chime,
which might end up as an extra heartbeat.
Yours. Plus-- you’d have to start again.

Once I tried to cheat grief
claiming to detach from it,
jetting off to the Big Sky
leaving grief at home on my pillow.
When I looked up at the Seurat sky,
I felt the dead I cherished,
wept mercilessly under the Milky Way,
each shooting star
someone I would never see again.

~ first published in The Alleluia Tree (Puddin’head Press)