Fourteen is a magic number

come to a home to languish in the door

and making sure that everyone is blest

with wraps of sadness, sorrow's squeezed-heart's core.

 

For grief, though undesired, will not leave; 

It grips you as you walk as if to soothe

Your mourning; and reminds you why you grieve

and close your throat.  The carefree days of youth

 

Know grief as gusts of rain, of spattered tears

soon dried with residue of memory

The autumns of our days must fight the fears 

of words unsaid, of death's true mystery.

 

Who else would hold the end of living dear

must welcome grief's grey arms and foggy leer.

I hadn't written one of these in a really long time, and it probably shows.  On the other hand, I'm maybe a little less swallowed whole by grief.  It's been a couple of years now.  Gotta get moving again.  (Yeah, it's finished.)