Have you ever attended or held vigil?
Were you an observer?
A mourner?
A worshiper?
The grace that veils mourning
can spread across time and crowds alike,
Leaving a strange peace in its wake.
That smooth spot
leaves room for expressions that have no other place.
There is no other time like grief.
The knot that notes the ending of a life,
a relationship, connection,
the flow stops here.
The unanchored end finally finds ground in the now.
Existentially hypothetical before this moment, and now unchangeable.
There is a before and an ever after.
The space between these is a land of its own.
Here is the dominion of big feelings, of emotional outbursts,
of stunned silence, of wailing, of moaning, of stoicism.
Moments of grief break the rules of polite society.
You are allowed to feel now,
Maybe in a way you Never did with the dead when they were alive.
There lies the shame of it all.
Death is the price of this space, this peace.
Grief for us all.
Big Thoughts in Our Little World 