“Meditations on Grief” | Simon Harms | Poetry

Meditations on Grief

Simon Harms

the november sun glints off a tangled web of fishing line, caught in the fingers of a fallen tree, worn gray by the cold. on the lake, whistling plates of ice are turning in the gentle rhythm of the wind—the wind that tosses at the lip of my coat, carries the wings of the crow, and bends the stalks of dead grass, jutting out of the earth at the water’s edge.

yesterday, an old man died. i have not yet found the words to fill the silence he left behind. when i peer out my window, i see the old black crow perched on those barren winter branches, singing the song his mother taught him in the nest his father built him.