IMMUNITY for Sunday Scribblings

I am not immune to the sudden stab of grief that won't go away when I think of Otto. And yet there is an added grief to which I am not immune. I wrote it best in an old poem written years ago for someone for someone else.

Here is the poem:
                      
                     NOW I GRIEVE
Now I grieve for the passing of my grief.
Intending to be constant in my sorrow
I fed my eyes on hollow air where you were not,
I fed my ears on silence of your voice
and winter joined to celebrate your absence;
hills misted with remoteness and no green thing intruded.
I willed my sorrowing to last forever.

But now my foolish heart forgets to mourn.
Warm air says wild plum is blossoming,
bricks press their sun-warmed bricks against my palm,
pale green leaf buds bead the lacy branches,
and frail new insects try transparent wings.
I grieve that these small things can ease my sorrow
for when it goes we will be doubly parted.