I’ve known grief. I don’t
Take it lightly. Know how
It gnaws your bones hollow
So you’re afraid to stand up,
Afraid the lightest wind will
Kock you over, blow you away.

But maybe the wind is supposed
To blow right through you.
Maybe you’re a tree in winter
And your poem translates
That cold wind into song.

 

I want to go back
To the beginning.
We all do.
                I think:
Hurt won’t be there.

But I’m wrong.
Where the water
Bubbles up
At the spring:
Isn’t that a wound?

Gregory Orr, Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved