Too Busy For Grief

in cities, we are too busy for grief

but grief comes anyway —

oozing from drain ways and street vents like warm fog,

rising, damp, in our walls,

falling like holy tears during thunder storms;

balling itself into hail,

until we shake our fist at the sky and shout:

“what did we do to deserve all this?”

grief does not pursue us in our corporate cages,

it skulks behind us in alleyways,

and follows us home,

grief sits patiently at our dinner table,

waiting for its turn to speak.

now? is now the time?

not yet, not yet, not yet —

not until we leave

to live on a mountain,

near a river,

or among trees,

does grief move in.

and then we learn to live with her,

for grief is not a monster,

only love, denied.