" Yartzeit "
This is not the season for our grief.
Vibrant green surrounds us and the sun
mocks us with its cheer--the briefest freedom
lightens memory's burden. Capricious time
grants us just this scant reprieve. A hard
dart of pain pierces the bright wonder
of a stolen moment--the joy of wonder
spun with a familiar thread of grief.
We stained the cloth ourselves, we plucked the hard
and bitter fruit from stunted trees no sun
had ever nourished. We have stranded time,
collapsed distance but haven't found the freedom
we were promised. I've learned there is no freedom
and pain may be illusion, but I wonder
how the Buddhas learned to live with time.
In winter, it is easier to grieve
even in a land of midnight sun.
I tried to meditate. It was too hard
to sit cross-legged and pretend the hard
work of healing would bring me any freedom.
I left you chanting to the morning sun.
I thought I would return before you wondered
how I had escaped. Still, the grief
followed me and so did you. This time
I will name the ghost who haunts our time
between the blooming of early dawn and hard
frost of night. I will share this grief,
drink it down with you. Our only freedom
when we're drunk with truth, too late to wonder
if I've chosen well. I'll let the sun
bleach the photographs of all the sons
and daughters who have been betrayed by time,
by broken promises; cursed to wander
lost in dreams. These stones make digging hard--
the earth itself denies us one last freedom.
We can never fully bury grief.
I squint into the sun, embrace the hard
won freedom with a child's sense of wonder.
This time I understand the gift of grief.
© 2004 Lisa Janice Cohen
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