there's grief enough for each

This Lesson You've Got

to learn is the someday you'll someday
stagger to, blinking in cold light, all tears
shed, ready to poke your bovine bead
             in the yoke they've shaped.

Everyone learns this. Born, everyone
breathes, pays taxes, plants dead
and hurts galore. There's grief enough
             for each. My mother

learned by moving man to man,
outlived them all. The parched earth's
bare (once she leaves it) of any who watched
             the instants I trod it.

Other than myself, of course.
I've made a study of bearing
and forbearance. Everyone does,
             it turns out, and note

those faces passing by: Not one's a god.

[Mary Karr {1955- }, from Sinners Welcome]