When sorrow for Paul’s cancer
And Tom’s dead father
And the ache of Kenneth’s heart
And my dog dead and gone threatens to undo me,
I seek the peace of wild things
And walk out into the forest
To lie down and feel the hard edges of nature.
Bleached elk skull, pulled down three winters back
By a wolfish hunger. Ridge of fallen tree in soundless decay.
The heron feeds on the frog’s choked cry
And I know that without forethought the grief
Still washes over the world and the sorrow builds
As the tides do and I am crushed by the peace
Of wild things who are not troubled.