In your presence, we were

In your presence, we were

“Under the seams runs the pain”-Anne Carson

Though light may shy away from us when we cloak ourselves in grief,

you taught us much more,

between the sway of your stepping, tripping occasionally over your vision curtained by your unkempt locks

and your soft breathing belying your courage and your care

for it was you who knew that it was we who needed protecting

all along.

In your presence, we were

protected in the nesting nosing of that gorgeous heart

of fur and fearlessness

barking our way through the dark and

toward the light.

Though we have buried you along the side of the hill bucketing the light

the sea and the waves, thousand-eyed and wind-in-the-ear,

your roots spread up and inside us.

Grief as nourishing as dimpled light.