Photo of end of season Rudbeckia, Vancouver

Dec. 14, 2011
'Tormented' is the word that comes to mind
But I will do them a kindness
And answer, 'Okay, and how are you?'
I do not know how to live with this.

Cruel love, your loss destroys
and cripples that within us
that tries to love but understands no longer
what existence even is.

You cannot drown sorrows;
they live on and on,
surviving your burbling attempts,
your bumbling and stumbling attempts,
their horned heads rising
behind every bluff you call.

And the tears keep flowing
just like those trick candles
which, though you keep blowing,
remain aflame.

I remember a moment
not two years ago,
bending over my flowerbed
and recognizing contentment
as I gazed on my life.
Gone, now,
and the flowerbed had gone to weed
long before the first snow
mercifully covered it,
neglected and forgotten,
overshadowed by grief.