The Black Coals of Grief

I found this poem on an old computer disk in my study. I had to write the poem out by hand, as the printer died a few years ago. The fall I moved to Alma, after the house was renovated, I discovered wheat growing beside the foundation. The seeds had been dormant for who knows how many years.

On one level this is a poem about the past and how it comes forward inside us. Some might also say we can reconnect with the dead in our poems, build them rooms and vistas, place flowers on their tables, leave them the bread of love and the water of our grief and loss.

The poem isn't finished yet. If anyone has any ideas where this poem might go next I'd love to hear from them.


THE BLACK COALS OF GRIEF

The abundance of the world is contained
in a single sheaf of wheat.

Someone planted it
one hundred years ago,

forgotten beneath the soil
until the soil was turned again.

Old bottles glinted in the light,
a lump of coal, square-

headed nails. In the night
familiar footsteps

climbed from the cellar
though no one was there.

*

And all through the autumn
winds rose and fell,

sunlight came out, yellow leaves
blew suddenly to the ground.

A voice rose with the wind:
"This is the way it happens--

things live and die, and take their place
on earth."

*

I would like to call the dead
home, but I can’t.

They sleep on, wake
and sleep again.

Old memories make a vessel of light.
It’s thirty years ago;

my grandmother
steps outside

to pick
a single rose.

*

My father’s cap
hangs from a nail by the stairs.

Twice he has called me from sleep.
Should I go?

On the morning he died
all the roads inside me turned to sand.

I take flowers, cold water,
the black coals of grief.

(Copyright 2006, Allan Cooper)