i.
I kneel where the earth is hollowed by losses. I know where sorrow, 
like a knife, lodges in my mother’s body. I know where it opens 

into a room where she sits in the stillness of her father's absence. 
I know the endless work of grief that's my mother returning to her father's 

photographs each time she remembers him. Today, I tend my wounds. 
I tend my wounds that begin with my dead buried beneath dirt, beneath grass 

and stones scattered across the fields of the world. I open my door 
and the smell of grief permeates the air. There is no paradise in a world 

where the beloveds are dead. In my dreams, my dead return to me. 
I see them walk the fields again. I listen to their voices. In my dreams, 

they return like geese. They dress my wounds. I touch their white gowns 
to know they are back with me. In my dreams, they laugh. They laugh the way 

the living laugh. When I wake up, the wounds remain. The wounds 
singe through my bones. I can't see them again. I mean my dead that hold 

my hand in my dreams. In the dark, I repeat their names like a mantra. 
My dead are gone and nothing can bring them back to me.


                                             ii.
My dead are gone and nothing can bring them back to me. In the dark, 
I repeat their names like a mantra. I can’t see the dead that hold my hands 

in my dreams. I can’t see them again. The wounds ache through my bones.
When I wake up, the wounds remain. In my dreams, my dead laugh the way

the living laugh. I touch their white gowns to know they are back with me.
They dress my wounds. In my dreams, they return like a prodigal son.

I listen to their voices. I see them walk the fields again. In my dreams, my dead
return to me. Lord, there is no paradise in a world where the beloveds are dead.

I open my door and there is emptiness in the air. Today, I tend my wounds.
I tend my wounds that begin with my dead buried beneath dirt, beneath grass

and stones scattered across the fields of the world. Lord, I know the slow work of grief
that’s my mother returning to her father’s photographs each time she remembers him.

I know where sorrow, like a knife, lodges in my mother’s body. I know where it opens 
into a room where she sits in the stillness of her father's absence. I kneel where the earth 

is hollowed by losses. 


                                                    iii.
My dead can't see the geese migrating in the sky, a flock of pigeons 
circling loaves of bread. They can't see the wind drifting in the streets, 

the sun slipping in through the cracks in the walls into their rooms. 
They can't hear the quails sing in the evening of the day. They can't inhale 

the smoke wafting into the air. My grandfather, dead for years, 
can't see the door opening into a room where his daughter sits, 

mourning his passing. Lord, I know where the wounds quiver, 
where the arrow of grief speeds through the bones. I know the loneliness 

of the world, the fate of watching each day depart without the beloveds alive. 
I know where the light of dawn vanishes, where grief replaces joy, 

where joy shrinks and never rises again. I know where sorrow, like water, 
seeps through my mother's body. Where the sound of a church bell cleaving 

the air can't reach her dead. Where the smoke billowing tonight can't ascend
into the air of the world. I know the feeble root of hope in the hours of mourning. 

There is a world burning and there is my mother sitting in the middle of a burning world.