THE BIRD OF GRIEF -

a painting by Carolyn Mary Kleefeld

This is the bird of grief
Attended by her ghosts;
Her long black wing outstretched
Like a psalm of sorrow.

All the hurt of man
Is weeping from her eye,
All the war of loving
Is breaking in her night.

This is the room’s last shadow,
The mother-feathered pain;
This is the touch of nursing souls
Before the flight of change.

This is the bird of grief
That shrieks inside the blood,
Whose silence is the sound of death,
Whose talons are for love.

Published in POEMS FROM A CABIN ON BIG SUR by Peter Thabit Jones, 2011

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THE BIRD OF GRIEF