Someone used to say
That spring begins and ends
Like a transient midday breeze

When the colour of the tulip fades
To an old pale yellow
You, grown out of your sorrow
Will stand ahead of the horizon
Ready to live, ready to breathe

up and over hills
we go, we go
but on the drive in
those hills
those wonderful hills
the ones that catch my breath
and lock it in their grass roots
the impossible to climb
but on the drive in
so wonderful to see

Branched between two oaks
I took it all in
the water, the open breeze
blended it all together
with the feeling of emptiness
and poured it into the ground
where the sun never goes
where things never grow
where the earth is barren
until something splits wide open
maybe it's the ground
or a feeling of living

In one split moment, my mother had sliced open grief right in front of me, an afternoon snack she called it. She sprinkled it with salt and pepper, plating it beside the apples that were going bad. We sat on the couch, the plate between us. Someday you’ll remember me, someday you will remember the taste of peculiar things. Like the burn of the pepper when it’s paired with something sweet and ****, and you will sit in that feeling, she warned, as I am today. I ask her to tell me something interesting, to which she would laugh and say, you’re the one who leaves every day, you must have something better to share than I do. All I had was something about walking the lines of the world, with my head down. I don’t have much to fill our silences with, except that I take her soft hands, and in them are stories, many pasts, many feelings, and I hold them. Someday you’ll remember me, and on that day, you’ll split open grief, pour it into your glass of half empty and half full, burning through the day, with the taste of pepper on your tongue.

with frayed edges
a little realization sits in the midst
of the ripples in the river
floating toward the unsuspecting  
like us, when we are caught up
in our best moments
until those frayed edges
momentarily
barely brushing against our skin
leaving each hair standing straight
and the absence of being
the absence of existing
and the absence of those
now far gone
sits with us, here,
with frayed edges

Here on this ledge
where many come to sit
in solitude, or with company
they leave behind pieces of their grief,
fragments of their love, seeds of their hope
stopping to take a breath
swallowing their words
for a minute of silence

and every time, I plant these things
with the little dandelions,
that make you sneeze
so there's something to blame
for the red eyes

because nothing blooms here
without carrying
someone's story
for you to read, for you to feel.

What we’ve come to know
about being human
is to grow in phases
to take pain and grief
from the ends of the bookshelf
and to stir them into the atmosphere

breathing in and out
until the silence between each breath
was a bridge to relief

it was never to solve the puzzle in a day
or to sort through all the pieces in
a strategic manner
but to feel the joy of frustration
the strange joy of trial and error