12.24.2021

so many people I love are in such pain

It aches, this life. When I quit trying 
to say it is otherwise, I feel relieved. 
So many people I love are in such pain. 
When grief comes, it comes 
 
and comes. The truth, you say? 
I don't bother to get dressed some days. 
Yesterday, I saw that apple tree 
in the old Jewish cemetery. 
 
Blossoms fell as a man walked by, 
whistling. Stones gleamed in sunlight. 
A wrought-iron fence guarded the dead, 
kept out the living. There are no words for it, 
 
how sunlight shines on the fence 
that separates the living from the dead. 
 
[Jim Moore {1943- } 'Variation on a Poem by Du Fu', from Underground]

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