The Lost Country

Fall 2012 • Vol. 1, No. 1

issn 2326-5310 (online)

Grief

By B. R. Mullikin

This work was published in the Fall 2012 issue of The Lost Country. You may purchase a copy of this issue from us or, if you prefer, from Amazon.

Too cold for often what it is—
(and sensible minds still see it so)
like wasps biting on an arid day
without so much the threat of death,
but for the fear of hot cement
and the simple need to live.

What once we held has died again
and lasting hopes are soon forgot
(since nothing of them seems more felt)
when such a fate consumes a life.

We do not breathe on these lifeless days
and as we hold the air between
two weakened vessels of sacred words
we learn to think and forget again;
to turn and touch what once we held
and know we never shall again.
Because for them we’ve lost the will
to sit beside the waterfall
and catch the morning sun in spring
with any sense of wonder.