Grief

the impossible capacity

Grief… the impossible capacity

what is the shape of the thing
that carries our grief

is it a bowl
a river
a sea

does it learn
the way our hands learn
the weight of a familiar cup

i wonder if joy lives there too
not as its opposite
but beside it
like two seeds
sharing the same dark earth

perhaps they make room
for one another

because i have believed
more than once
that surely this is the last thing
i can bear

that one more goodbye
one more absence
one more challenge faced
would split me open

and yet

morning arrives
quiet as dust
and somehow
the vessel has changed again

not larger exactly

only softer
at the edges

what once pressed
against every wall
now settles differently
not because it matters less
but because i have become
someone who knows
how to carry it

still

there are days
when another drop
would send everything
spilling over

days when even the smallest sorrow
echoes
like thunder
inside a nearly full glass

and there are days
when the light slips in
without asking permission

when i laugh
before remembering
i was supposed to be grieving

those are the days
that confuse me most

because nothing has been returned
nothing undone

only my hands
have remembered
another way
to hold

grief
does not ask us
to become stronger

it asks us
to become wider

to make a home
for all that cannot be kept
and all that refuses
to leave

until one day
we stop measuring
the size of the vessel

and begin trusting
its quiet
impossible
capacity