Slow Grief
My grief has yet to peak
A strange place, to see it coming,
Approaches so slow you can be fooled
Into believing it’s not already there.
Yet it creeps in at moments
When the guard is out to lunch
And you sit there naked to the shadow
Like the beast that slouched toward Bethlehem.
It’s okay, I think, to bear the sadness
As it builds and morphs from yet to be
Into here it is, and not to be denied
Then the polite shadow gently invites me to dance.
As I consider this proposal from
The inevitable host in darkness
I know in some part of my being
That light and dark are eternal partners.
Two sides of the same precious coin.
Ken Rubenstein, now retired, has been an executive, consultant, and technology journalist. He currently enjoys writing prose and poetry, keyboard playing, and has served six years as an adult literacy tutor for the Santa Barbara Library.