I originally wrote this in 2006 for a friend who lost a parent. I also made some drawings to go with it. It never quite sounded right and was a bit too playschool, so sat it in the recesses of my notebooks for another time.
I was talking with a friend about the culture of grief and how it's so different depending on how/where you grow up. He mentioned that in some traditions people cover mirrors when they've suffered a loss so that they don't 'see' their own grief. It's so they can get on with their daily routine. I think I was raised in a culture where we are taught to stare in the mirror and challenge our grief. You talk and talk and talk about it and regiment your life around it like you're earning a degree in 'Dealing with Your Shit'.
I realised it's all just different ways of busying yourself so that you can cope. I'm learning grief isn't something you conquer. You live through it. No one likes it. There's no way to excel at it because it happens in so many different ways over time in each of us; it moves and evolves in every individual. And whether you hide from it or face it like you were taught to do, you're still experiencing it in your own way.
But, the coversation shook something loose for me and reminded me of the first line 'Grief is like a mirror...' and suddenly I knew how this poem was supposed to be finished. So, here's my humble offering and the original 2006 illustrations. I think my project this month will be to finally finish it and bind a copy or two for myself and others.
Enjoy!
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Grief
Grief is like a mirror in which we stare agog.
It shows our pain and weakness, a burden for the slog.
Our grief is like a pebble stuck in between two cogs.
It’s like a faulty treadmill set for an endless jog.
Some grief is like a hambone gnawed by a vicious dog.
Or it’s a widowed granny sat sadly on a log.
Grief chokes like a heron that's caught a great big frog;
Grief is like a stone bridge blocked by a troll named Trog.
Grief makes us lonely sailors, lost, guzzling grav’ly grog,
our heads abuzz with sadness shoved in a jar of smog.
Grief is like a low tide that's trapped a pollywog,
or grey and giant boulders sinking in the bog.
Our grief is contradictions, a pipe we can’t unclog,
but will break for a new day, a
slow yet clearing fog.
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