1.
I have been
getting familiar lately
with the flavor of
grief. It comes on me
with no warning.
While driving up-river,
to shelter-in-Nature.
At 68 mph, passing
a too-slow, white
Chevy truck. There
it is. A watery
film glazes my eyes.
It curls up, like
fog on a pond, when
the weather turns
and water reacts,
a heat differential
as the sun rises.
I am not, I should
add, grief-stricken.
Although, were I to
think about it, it’d be
easy to tune into it
clear, like locking
on a radio station
amid a miasma
of static.
2.
There is enough
grief going round, what
with a pandemic
expiring a quarter
million lives in less
than a year. A quarter
million sons & daughters,
fathers, mothers, friends
& cousins. Reprobates and
saints. This virus claims
them all. Then, there’s the
grief that fuels the anger
with a clown-show
president, who is no
more interested in the
lives he helped dispatch.
Couldn’t, honestly, it seems,
care less. Would rather
mull the many
slings and arrows of
his outrageous misfortune.
One white golf shoe
pressed to the floor,
going hole-to-hole.
Chewing on his
interminable grievances.
As we, his audience,
enraged or darkly
entertained, pull up
short, after yet another
mate gets called
positive. And like a
relentless grandmaster,
wielding bishops &
pawns, bears down upon
our sanctuary.
3.
There’s a lot of
grief going down.
But I don’t think
this grief is
that grief. This
murky, sudden-rising
grief seems old, inborn,
perhaps? The grief of
childhood’s shock,
when we were promised
innocence, but daily
living overtook us
like a steamroller,
flattening things. Or we,
in our woundedness,
flatten other people’s
lives. Hurt people hurt
people, as they say.
(And let it be said,
whomever ‘they’ are,
they’re likely hurt, too.)
It comes with the
territory. This
grief, I mean.
4.
There’s a word in
Buddhist thought—samvega.
It’s the dawning horror
we’re yoked to this
water-wheel of life-after-
life, spun round
for aeons. So lost. ‘Long
have I wandered in samsara,
seeking, but not finding
the builder of this house …’
That grief is maybe the
sort I mean.
Be curious, my
kalyana mitta—my
spiritual friend—B.
says, with whom I
engage in inquiry
once a month by
telephone, across
the length & breadth
of America. Sometimes,
he’s on the Left Coast,
sometimes New Orleans,
it doesn’t matter. The
guidance remains the
same. Don’t flee! Don’t
exit the field, back into the
cockpit of my forebrain. A
familiar redoubt, where I head to
outhink my churning thoughts.
5.
That’s a hopeless, age-old
dodge. Be curious when
the demiurge, the sleek
panther of rage appears
(that’s a powerful fellow,
that one.) Not jet-black,
but made from dark
charcoal smoke, flecked
with grey ash. Who’s he?
Be curious. Remain
in the room. And so,
now, driving,
50 mph. Gazing for
my turn-off, aiming to
sit in the noon-time sun.
Cigar in one hand, a
couple of dragonflies
helicoptering down
upon my white pants
leg—such curious creatures!
I don’t shoo them off.
But photograph them
with my phone. Realize
the taste of grief is gone.
6.
For now. It had risen
at the back of my throat
like gorge. Gone in this
minute with the
dragonflies, as they lift off,
alight anew.
I am quite sure it
will be back. Until
I attain nibbana. If,
that is, it’s even possible
to ‘attain.’ This grief,
I’m certain, will be a
traveling companion
for the long road. Or
several companions. For
I sense—distantly, yet
with certainty—my grief
has distinctions.
Many eras. Many colors.
And many flavors. I hardly
know them all.
Greenbottom, WV | nov27-28.2020
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