Home is a scar of remembrance

Warrior ~Aucassin Verdé (Pen & ink on paper ~ 2003)

The Way Of Grief

The way of grief is a green desert. You must set out
sandless and bare of foot. Water and plenty await you.
Trust the shadowing sky that it will provide the nutrient
of breath and second guessing. Listen for voices in the
dunes. They will instruct you if you will but guide them
toward your journey. Shift when they shift. Trace the horizon
with a closed eye and settle where rest summons you.

Carry bone music deep into where it will not want to go.
Animal skin obeys the hand that would leave it to its own design.
Wander then wishless, glistened by the sweat of stars that oil the wheel of reckoning dead through the darkness, knowing home is a scar of remembrance. Your fathers and dogs will rise up to meet you. They will come from places misdirectioned and uncompassed. They will welcome you as family, for they are.

You will know them by names they’ve never told you. Your
lineage will stretch out before you like a causeway in the mist,
curve in opposite trails that lead to the same point of bloodletting.
This, too, is the way of grief. Lush and sere, desiccated as spider’s
prey, choked with the frilled sorrow of saxifrage. The way of grief
is a green desert in the rain. Go there. Do not hesitate.
Do not return. There is no place in which to do that.

Joseph Gallo
September 6, 2005