Grief, not grievance is poetry’s work
Frost quipped—not something to shirk
or shy away from by opting for complaint. Grief,
he also wrote, is a form of patience—an idea not
so easy to get—although, when a bird, thought
extinct for decades, is seen—grief knows some relief,
and, having waited patiently as magma, rises to
be released. One scientist sobbed, after he caught
a glimpse of the woodpecker, flying across
his bow as he paddled the bayou. Hope, I was taught,
is often grief’s midwife, opening the door for loss
to pass through. The second scientist—there were two—
steadied himself by suggesting a typical, field routine.
Each sat, writing down everything they’d just seen.
Charles Weld is a retired mental health counselor/administrator, now working part-time in an agency treating youth, He lives in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.