Wisdom of Grief Heart

When I asked, you said,
it’s like a full sun flooding your morning
and all at once it’s the middle of the night,

it’s like you’re pulled down
by the weight of your own hair,

it’s like your body goes alien,
and the sky’s from a wrong planet,
and there’s a blizzard, it’s personal,
you survive it, but it’s difficult to talk about,

it’s like walking on the edge of a star-abandoned canyon
and with each step, the temptation to leap,

it’s like you’re chum flung into open water,
you’re a clutch of waxwings slamming into windows.

And to neutralize
the vinegar of my own helplessness, I say,
guide me to the boundaries
and let me carry the dry grinding burden
of your savage desert,
(but I have no power),

and I say, then
let me bless you
as a Kyoto monk blesses,
by turning and painting for you a rose-grey sky,
and Kanji, from a stand of wind-bent trees
on a horizon of glowing mist,
giving you your new names:

Mountain of Light,
Wisdom of Grief Heart,
Sound of Water Over Obsidian
Bright Wren of the Night Watch,
Dawn Wolf Sun Warrior,
Sea of Knowing Sorrow,
Essence of Ocean,
Glories of Rain,
Sweet Spirit from Long Gaze,
Song of the Crocus,
Saint Moon of the Full Soul,
Shaman of the Shining Healers.