I’ve been doing a course with the Poetry School, Poetry & Ritual. This exercise is to write a lament, a grief poem. This is mine:

Lament for my village

He stares
Into an abyss
A view no one should bear alone
A new portrait
Of a family
Smaller
Smaller
Numb for a moment
Then the shock
Of this thought
She is gone

It takes a village
To accompany a dying
It takes a village
To contain a grieving

The village is here
Grief is welcome here
Finds its voice here
A beautiful, precious howl
Chases birds from the trees

Forty pairs of eyes
Almost as sad as his
Forty pairs of hands
Holding as he thrashes

And I remember
We once lived this way
Now we live alone
Grieved this way
Now we grieve alone
Praised this way
Now we praise alone
And I weep
For the village
I expected
And did not receive

Copyright © 2017, Mike Wilson