With you who grieve I have watched: <br />Seen the white coffin carried by one man; <br />Felt the too-soonness of young life ended, <br />Sung the words “Look upon a little child” and choked. <br /> <br />I have embraced the red-eyed widow <br />And murmured quack-words that bring no comfort <br />But ease us past the moment that can’t truthfully be shared. <br />It’s the first agony of many such to be faced alone: <br />Loneliness being the chief pain. <br /> <br />We grieve, all together............ <br />I grieve.................. <br /> <br />“Put it to the back of your mind! ” <br />“Try to live one day at a time”......Ha! <br />How big is the space at the back of one’s mind <br />To store so many packages of sorrow? <br />What do they know of days and the grief that’s in every one of them; <br />And how many days do I need? <br />Let’s see. <br />There’s a day for my Mother, <br />A day for my father, <br />A day and a night for the boy that was me; <br /> <br /> <br />Perhaps just half days for those not dead but only lost to me: <br /> <br />And I grieve for all those who are crying in the night, <br />Behind the sparkling city lights, <br />Under the glittering desert stars. <br />Stand above any city at night, <br />And feel the sorrow flood upward to you, <br />Until the lights shift and swim in your watery eyes. <br />I grieve there, then, for the lonely, <br />For the unloved, <br />For the beaten, the hurt, <br />For those who see themselves as ugly, <br />For the lost, <br />For the bewildered, <br />For the disappointed <br />For the bombed, the burned, the blinded children, <br />For tribesmen coughing blood from their lungs into the dust: <br /> <br />I witness endless crucifixion and can only grieve... <br />Oh, my Lord, how I grieve and am never wrung dry.<br /><br />Roy William Gotaas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/you-who-grieve/
