Grief, Instrument-Maker
an Easter offering
Grief, Instrument-Maker
Its gentle violence,
knifing my guts,
is doing what it must.
Like ancient ancestor-hands,
splitting open and scraping
woolly mammoth tusk
rightly raised high
for sun-blessing
before excavation,
grief eviscerates,
digging furrows
with the sharp,
shattered stone of loss,
making of me
(slowly, lovingly)
an ivory instrument
trenched by despair,
rinsed of hope…
hollow.
There must be space inside,
grief knows,
a pure channel of emptiness
through which
the breath of the Divine
can play through me,
so that I may sing the rarest notes
of healing into broken hearts,
mine included.
And when, as they do, moments stab—
I cannot speak
I cannot breathe
(the light of you,
your laugh)—
I remember, again, why
tears will not drown me;
they are simply my own rain-blessing,
consecration of new room
within, courtesy
of an unappreciated Maker
Unprepared for the impact this piece of art just smacked into me, the raw gutural punch of the deep knowing of those that recognize grief, in all its phases and guises, for it sometimes comes pretending to be something else.
The universe truly gifted you with the words to express the observations of itself, all so raw and so darn moving. Blessings to you, Mary, and your family.
You have quite the poetry cannon here on Substack. Perhaps worth investigating into publishing them in a book. You can even self-publish these days. I would buy your book and I bet a few of us here would do it.
Dear Mary, This is exquisite. Tender. True. Grief can gut us, but it can also elevate us in ways we can't imagine. I once had an acupuncturist tell me that I had so much grief it was buried in my bones. I remember looking at her, shocked. I was completely detached and unaware of it. She stuck a needle in my heart center, and I started to sob uncontrollably for what seemed like a lifetime.
Thank you for this beautiful share. Love from my 🩷 to yours.