There is a Grief at the Heart of All Things

Sometimes, driving on a highway, after the road has quieted
(Say at 10 am on a Thursday or Friday)
I feel, riding beside me,
The deep grief of all things, turning to greet me from the passenger side—
A surprise—
Like a wave rising from the ocean, higher than the ridges all around me,
Pouring over the bridges,
To drown the horizon which flies mindlessly to the sky   

It need not be a crowded byway
And even a road bedrocked in beauty will not be lovely enough to quiet all the sorrow, like water, pouring from God's speared side,
As the world limps by, like a wounded deer, bleeding with such endless longing

There is a grief at the heart of all things
And even the bright sun cannot erase it
There is a dark night in the bright day
And yet, even still,
Across the highway now, a murder of ravens flew out and,
Far from being some dark omen
They became, on the wind and wing,
The revelry of all things

Reminding us all, as all things can,
That we are alive
And that though we are dying
We still can fly
On skies that will make space for us
If we find the courage, simply,
To rise