Engagement with Grief

Do the hardest things first.

Open your eyes.

Thank the day for arriving,

your heart for beating, your arm for reaching.

Your dreams for hovering just above the headboard near the prayer flags you arranged to be one more comfort in the bedroom whose walls have been washed and washed again, the paint roller burying the twilight blue under a white that must have been named by a birder. Dove’s Wing.

Plump the pillows after pulling the flannel sheets taut, straighten the t-shirt quilt that boasts of times past, times shared with the beloved one who has been three months absent of body in the place where the two of you made a home.

Did she know, when she said she wanted you to have a queen-size quilt of special t-shirts from your first ten years together that you would be wrapping it around you like a shroud on cold nights this December and telling yourself to do the hardest things first.

Open your eyes.

Thank the day for arriving.