until everyone we love is safe

To weep unbidden, to wake 

at night in order to weep, to wait 

for the whisker on the face of the clock 

to twitch again, moving 

the dumb day forward— 

 

is this merely practice? 

Some believe in heaven, 

some in rest. We'll float, 

you said. Afterward 

we'll float between two worlds— 

 

five bronze beetles 

stacked like spoons in one 

peony blossom, drugged by lust: 

if I came back as a bird 

I'd remember that— 

 

until everyone we love 

is safe is what you said. 

 

[Ellen Bryant Voigt {1943- } 'Practice', from The Art of Losing: Poems of grief and loss]