The gift of grief

Enough now, we agreed. Nothing else to be done.
You took a pen, a scrap of paper, and drew
a heart and in the heart you wrote: 'peace'.
Then you stood with the sun low behind you,
rays of light streaming from your head—
we could only see a bright star not your face.

And the sea was so cold! In you went
with your ruined skin and cramping feet,
into the shiver with your fine-haired head,
the shape of you among the waves dissolving
even as you smiled. If the twin of grief
is praise, then praise the sea which makes

our bones ache, even in summer.
I believe you'd been waiting for permission.
Next to peace, in that heart, you'd also written:
'freedom'. A word so close to love.
Time is a growing thing, roaming to seed.
Then somewhere else, the sun is blinding.