Loss

They left her in the bleakest months,
the months of darkness and cold
when earth was dead and rock-hard.

Earth mined out with fire and pick-axe,
leaving a hole like the one in her life,
grudgingly yielding frozen clods
like the one where her heart should be.

Cold promises of heaven and resurrection
spoken on this little hillside,
this little Golgotha,
could not dispel looming loneliness,
days and nights now to be spent alone,
dreams forever unrealized.

Embraces could not console her.
Soft words could not dispel her grief.

Daughter put her arm around her.
“Come.”
She did not move.
“Come.”
She left.
Her body left,
but her heart remained behind in the cold hard ground.

#Bereavement #Grief #Mourning #MargaretGHanna #Poetry