In it's own time

Grief takes time, takes it's own time

We can't control it, not for ourselves, not for anyone.

Nor can we judge how long it takes.

It passes like a hurricane, slow, devastating and ponderous

Or perhaps a tornado, quick and violent.

Time measured against nothing but itself.

Loss visits me again,

Stays as it will, like an unwelcome guest.

On a good day I understand

New only arrives, when old makes way.

On a bad day, I'm wracked with despair and wonder

Why the familiar recedes from my grasp.

My life has been rich with loss

Making way for lives I'd have never known

Loss never gets easier; practice little helps

Still I fear being one who fails to lose,

Sees loss as a terminal state rather than

The manure that powers the next harvest

Sometimes, in fact at this time, now

I feel up to my ears in the manure of loss.

It's putrid, disgusting and as necessary

As the air that I breathe.

I know this, I hate this but

I can't (but want to) live without this.

Science projects in the fridge rot for no purpose, 

Serve no good and just get tossed.

Moldy loss, festers in its own juices,

Can't be tossed, stays unbidden,

Unforgiving, unrelenting, unwilling

To help the loser understand.

But losers that accept not knowing, not understanding,

Wallow in their loss, stew in their own juices,

Accept putrification as their destiny,

Truly lose the opportunity to grow, to capture

Future nutrients, life manure, shitty for sure but

No doubt the strength, sinew of life's thread.

I may never understand why those once near

Can no longer appear, to me, dear,

Some not any where, some there never here.

I know loss as my exhale blown to the wind,

Beyond my inhale giving life to my uncharted path.

Just now I am breathless looking for my next giddy inhale.