If you are a modern person
you won’t have a clan, tribe or village,
where you can go crashing through gates,
drunk with grief,
your indigenous soul seared, severed
by the flint edge of loss,
the ache of it on your head, neck, back,
pack and tumpline straining under the weight of it,
you, reeling, staggering, crazed and calamitous, yet
accepted and understood,
for as much time as it takes
to find your route through and back home.
If you are a modern person,
you may not even have a community
or an extended family
to attend you, to
receive you.
That’s fine.
You only need one good friend
to be your designated non-griever,
who will lead you to a private spring, brook, lake,
or even a stretch of ocean, womb of the earth,
and listen, as you speak your grief into the waves.
You can say it all to the water,
sink into the drowning of what’s missing.
You can thrash, scream, curse, you can roar revenge,
you can squirm in the sand, fling shale,
run in loops, become a raging fool,
a shitfaced symphony.
Your sober non-griever will watch out for you,
won’t counsel you about proper restraint,
the millennia of cultural conditioning:
the resolute pause, the pious posture, the washed-face
of moving on that seals off the great sobs,
dams a torrent of tears,
freezes rage or residual hate,
and cuts off the path to praise.
Your non-griever-listener
will taste your suffering, will hold
your heartache without a hint
of subtraction or assimilation, and wait,
keep you fed, give you a blanket, produce a candle,
help steer in time your mess of pain to the sea,
and the water, wondrous teacher,
will swallow it, and the tides will churn it,
and you, steadier now, may recall
a time you danced with what you loved,
and praise,
grief’s elegant twin sister,
who’s presence is loss-
turned-courageously-back-to-life-
in-the-service-of-love,
will surface.
* The phrase “designated non-griever” is taken from the writings of Martín Prechtel.
Beautiful. True. Without guile.
Thank you Taline!
Reminded me of precious friends, with whom I can explore what is broken without sinking into the morass of the stories we make our own
I like that Ananda, thank you. We need such friends.
“Praise, grief’s elegant twin sister” – – elegant indeed when when ‘she’ returns!
So difficult, the grieving journey. My heart goes out to you Ike. With thoughts and prayers for you and Millie.
Perhaps my favourite yet. Thank you.
Thank you Lori! That means a lot.
One good friend,
with the grand eloquence
of kindness
as his center.
Lovely, Stephen
Thank you dear Tamara!
This comes a week after grief has once again become my constant companion. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Susan, whatever you are going through, my prayers and thoughts of care are with you.
You have the most elegant way of speaking those things that are never spoken. Thank you for this one.
Thank you, Corinne, for reading and for such a generous response.
Another beautiful poem from the depths, Stephen. I love this concept. This truth. Maybe we all be so lucky to have this designated non griever….and the sea….the sea…will and able to swallow everything whole.
Thank you Terry Ann. I think that at some level, all of nature, the wild, animals, even pets can be that for us, moreover, blessed are those who have a companion for such a journey.
Thanks for this thoughtful reflection. So timely.
Thank you, Don!
Beautiful words, Steve,
… but I’m struggling with the idea of non-grieving. The non-griever permits grieving. But in my work with folks who are grieving, I often find myself grieving too. Perhaps I need a context.
… googled “designated non-griever” and came up with GrowMercy!
Thank Sam. And certainly, associated grief is natural, it’s empathy, ‘non-griever’ is not a strict category, a non-griever is simply one who accompanies, walks with another going through deep and immediate grief.