Half grieved

Honor your grief
let it free the energy that is within you

he says, touching the back of my neck
for a minute I think it possible

to lift my arms into space and call
never imagining that someone else is capable

of making me feel like the imagined weight
I have put on has lifted off

like a little bird took flight
this is me, or is it my reflection, that has half grieved

a human so alive
but so intensely engulfed with the idea

of dead birds in the snow
why did I imagine floating on the edge of the river

a picture of your face, carried you
like a cross or a saint of lost causes, cast-off

to where the bamboo meets the sky
where the rivers lick the edge of the mountains?