ManicDDaily

A Grief

There is grief we have no claim to,
yet it claims us.  It is the reverse
of the view of a landscape owned by another,
a place we drive
or walk by, taking in with sigh the checkerboard
of fields, the cirrus sunsets.

But grief–this grief–is nothing at all
like that.  It’s the reverse, I said–
the metaphors of the bystander just
don’t come–the knife
to a nearby heart, the reverberation
of sob, the dank well
of loss that one has not, in fact,
been forced down to.

A child gone missing==it’s
a blade I have not felt, thank God–but even
the mere thought slices from forehead down–physically hurts–even as I
know that it’s a grief I have no claim to–thank God thank God thank God–
it claims me, physically hurts, even as I know my hurt
is nothing, nothing.

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Have been thinking about Etan Patz and his parents since yesterday’s reports of the fresh search below a basement floor in Soho.  Etan’s disappearance  was an event that saddened  and frightened all New Yorkers (and probably all parents) for many years.  Still, I was shocked at how painful it’s been to read about it all again.  I send my deepest sympathies to Etan’s parents.