Older Grief
 
It’s about sudden tears swept
in by a strand of music.
It’s about haunting echoes of
pain on anniversaries.
It’s about feeling his presence
for an instant one day while dusting the room.
It’s about early pictures that
invite me to hold him in my arms again.
It’s about memories blown on
wisps of wood smoke and sea scents.
Older grief is about aching in gentler ways,
rarer longing, less engulfing fire.
Older grief is about searing pain
wrought into tenderness.