Grief Has a Bottom
Brandon Cook
It remains the hardest trust to exhale into:
That grief has a bottom, and that we will find it,
Like touching the mud of the river after jumping
My child clinched and clung to the rock, mustering courage, fighting the quaking of his fingers, willing desperate toes to the edge, then pulling back
Until, without warning, like the sudden rush of a flock of ravens driven skyward in a holy instant,
He jumped, and rising from the stone surface, shaking in the sun, he fell and disappeared
Then rose, laughing with the intake of air, his body still terrified, his being alive
Just so
We fathom the measureless below
In the dark where no light goes