Grief

by Barbara Brooks

It tumbles like a torrent from the sky
soaking the ground. Drowns the newly
planted grass in a cloudburst.
 
I focus a prism on sorrow to see
if hope can be found.
 
But I can see none, only forests
razed to the ground, mountains
stripped of their tops. I notice
only the world being torn down,
dug up, burned.
 
Sorrow covers me with smog
and disease.  It forms its own glacier
that slides down to cover
my thoughts with soot and dust
from distant corners of the world.
 
In the lengthening days, I wait.
 
* * *

BARBARA BROOKS is a retired physical therapist and author of 3 chapbooks, The Catbird Sang, A Shell to Return to the Sea, Watercolors.  She is a member of PoetFools writing group. She lives in Hillsborough, NC with her dog.

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