The bereaved are treated gently,
perhaps too gently.
Every day, when I went to grieve,
I saw the grave-digger, cutting weeds,
and keeping the place tidy,
but we never spoke, beyond a nod.
Then, one day, he came and said:
"This place is full of dead children,
and nobody weeps for them,
but their own."
What do I make of this?
It burned in my mind.
He is right.
The whole world is full of dead children,
and always was.
An ocean of uncontainable sadness,
washing round the feet of all our joys.
All life would end, buried away down deep
beneath the crushing load of sorrow,
were we not immune to most of that distress.
Our own is almost too much, as it is.
Many simply sit, pining, paralysed,
and waiting for uniting death.
I am ready to die, for my child is dead.
But though I am wounded, there are things worth doing,
and though I bleed, I still can stand
and force the gates of the resisting world.
Grief is a drug. For a while, it heals,
but in the end it kills.
The illusion of loyalty produces worse betrayal.
Life is to live. Our dead don't need our grief.
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