Grief

by Eve Castle

When he died an oak tree sprung
ramming its way in one mighty heave
through living room floor, pressing
upper branches, greenery and limbs
flat to the ceiling.

For a second I wondered:
would it break an opening
for something to come through.

I climbed the rubble at its great base,
a mountain of dirt and broken wood slats
and with meager arms rounded wide,
I gauged its circumference. Its bark
scratched at my cheek, at my ear.

Floating nearby was his fading voice
and the faint scent of his skin. As I listened, I
heard his laughter resonate deep in that trunk.
My edges trembled but the oak's leaves
didn’t rustle, didn’t stir.

I tried to capture the enormity of grief when losing a loved one. When I closed my eyes and tried to envision it, a mighty oak suddenly in the middle of your "home" is what came into my head. I imagined the destruction it caused and how small one would seem compared to it and how hard it would be to get your arms around it. At the end I tried to capture how the oak (grief) is unmovable. This poem has seen several transitions. At one time I tried to make it about any kind of grief and not just grief associated with death. At one time it was also third person as if I was an onlooker on someone else's grief. Changing it to be directly about the death of a loved one and making it first person (I climbed the rubble...) strengthened it. I hope that anyone who has experienced the enormity of grief from a significant loss will appreciate the imagery here and find that they can connect with something in it. This one was published in Illya's Honey, 2009.