Michael Shepherd - 0012 Bereavement

What is it, when we mourn and grieve and cry
for those we loved - and love - now passed away,
that gives our pain such brute totality?

so vital, that we almost love that pain
(our faces sometimes radiant in grief) ,
unwilling to let go pain's absolute,
since there, hides knowledge deeper than belief
of that sole absolute itself, the root
of all our being, oneness that we share
with those with whom we sought our selves to prove?

that pain, which barely differs from a prayer
to know - by suffering deepest hurt of love:
Yes! Let us dive into that holy deep
of total grief and love: then, can self weep?

(2001)

Michael Shepherd

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0012-bereavement/