Large Fierce Mammal

“If you’ve ever lost someone who mattered, regardless of their species, you have experienced grief. If you haven’t so far, then you eventually will, because all relationships in Nature come with an expiry date. Neither good nor evil, it’s the way of things, and grief is the process Nature has given to some of her creatures (not only humans) to permit adaptation to getting on with living …

“One can’t always walk in the sun, and there are times when navigating the darkness must be done without a light to see by until the day it comes, as it is meant to, from within. I’ll leave you with that thought, and close with one of my favourite quotes from James Tiberius Kirk, spoken in a pivotal scene from Star Trek V – The Final Frontier: ‘Damn it Bones, you’re a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. [to Sybok] I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!’ ~ Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 7: Grief

On 6 June of this year, I made mention here that, “Tonight a Most Esteemed Friend’s Dog is at peace. His Master is not.”

The Dog of whom I spoke was Bodhi Carbone, to whose exploits I dedicated my 2012 poem Hunter’s Soul. My EFF Gary, Pam, and your — if I may, our — dear departed Bodhi, this is dedicated to you as you find your way back to the shore. It hurts, and it’s supposed to until it doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean you’ll ever be “over it”. That, you’re not supposed to, because the joy of a life well lived is not diminished by the fact that it ended.

Bodhi Carbone. (Gary Carbone photo)

Floodplains

By LFM

Beloved soul, enshrined in Life,
Mother, Father, Husband, Wife,
Sister, brother, infant, child,
Released in death unto the wild.

Such power is no tiny thing
To bundle up and blindly fling,
So whither for this loos-ed ghost?
Why, to the ones it loves the most!

Thence cleaving to those left behind,
The spirit would become entwined
With kindred souls still snugly donned,
In fragments measured to the bond.

And this is where the pain is felt,
Proportioned to the measure dealt.
As heavy rain on forest loam,
It takes a while to soak it home.

But be no rigid vessel pray!
No fragile thing of glass or clay!
As floodplains flood and green again,
Resist thee not the spirit’s yen.

Who rides the storm and bears the din
Will find the room to let it in,
Beloved spirit, bound to be
An ever cherished part of thee.

So those bequeathed must bear the sting
That such a gift as this will bring,
There is no succor nor release,
But storm tossed waves from pain to peace.