Terrible Truth

 

“Grief” by Vrindavan Das

a presence of absence
exists in the waiting
a thing of departure
that lives within hope
in the ache for return
a thing solid and stout
as the summer tree
felled for the firewood
wanted by winter

a tangible emptiness
stands in the space
of what recently was
but which no longer is
in the chair where he
lived and endured
all those difficult years
sits the substance of
yearning to have him
returning a need with
dimension and weight

such is artifact hunger
comprising the wait for
beginning of something
for ending of nothing
a desperate desire for
reprise of a yesterday
fulsome again with
good wood and good
blood in appreciable
bones of extravagant
blatant reality

heady persistent
corporeal memory
shimmers and shines
as a mocking affront
to the logical lucid
acceptance of loss
for she has neither
stomach nor spleen
for the terrible truth