Inner Grief

by Dave Bouwer ©1995 Dave Bouwer


Inner Grief

When the sadness fills me,
It does so like a Canyonland Thunderstorm.

Like the storms that overwhelm the Canyonlands,
the dry earth cannot hold the falling tears,
and the tears become torrents in each ravine and arroyo,
building with each joining, racing down the sand
and stone canyon hills.

Each drop suspends a piece of sand, a memory or a thought
dissolved from the surface of the earthen desert.
The rivulets become streams, and the streams join,
and soon a river filled with the watershed of centuries
rages between the steep canyon walls of my soul.

Any hope is like a tiny sapling near the riverbank,
eventually the swelling river pulls its tender
roots from the earth. It disappears down the raging
flood to become just another piece of debris in the muddy torrent.

Downstream there is a mighty dam,
that holds the raging flood back with powerful walls
that spans the canyon height and width,
spinning it's turbines and filling its floodgates.
I feel like that dam, and as the flood fills my
reservoirs, I try to face the day

..praying the dam will hold
for yet another day.

-db



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