The Grief Fire

I'm standing by a grief fire
that's been wanting to burn.

I finally laid the kindling

and hash-tagged small sticks, 

struck a match, and let 'er rip.

It lit up like a mid-January Christmas tree

the flames hungry for reconciliation.

I fed it more...

memories, hopes, wishes,

just twigs really

hot and hungry, wishing to escalate.

I grabbed the logs next...

the heaviest oak of priceless loss

that would burn relentlessly hot

until expended.

I wanted ash.

I wanted that flame obliterated,

but it had a life span I couldn't rush.

The embers kept their glow,

photo edges curling, snaps of time melting like wax

every dream drenched in gasoline.

I stood intimately close

gazing as my hair burned, my face gone,

dying along with the fire

and daring a Pheonix rise.

Jaded Twinkie

Disappointment feels so lengthy
like the shelf life of Twinkies...
never half price
always buy one get one,
whether you want it or not.

I say this, with the sincerest wish it were a lie,
Moving too quickly through grief
will land you back at the start,
with the finish line looking more and more
like Hank Aaron's 756th home run.

I mourn my losses hard
with the level of difficulty I assign to most things.
I give them the sadness they are due,
holding funeral to dreams while still hoping
they rise from the ashes...
peeking shyly at their memory
from somewhere between an incubating belief
and a dying breath.

You just never know.

I was never a fan of Twinkies.
I like my desserts dense, like the weight of a castle
a monument...solid and dependable like that.
I don't understand anything light, or airy, or easy.
Tough feels familiar,
and too good to be true
usually is.

So I surrender for a season,
not black, not white, not all, not nothing
and there is some relief in that.
Even while sounding resigned and jaded
I am scanning for hope to light another fire
that doesn't easily expire.
A solid vision, a weighted dream
that won't escape.


(Dreams. I remember some dreams dying on the push-push of my son's effort, and others that seemed born of the sky...falling like gifts in a way that no one could ever predict. I thought my heart would break when his baseball dream took it's last breath, but to look at him now...his success and happiness? One has to wonder. I believe God has his hand in everything, and sometimes it all gets mixed up like scrabble tiles. But there still exists...the d, r, e, a, m....and the h, o, p, e, that one day the dream will reassemble in such a way that it can only be called a miracle.)