Stone, Chair, Grief, and Poetry

in water
the stone is what is not water
though shaped by it

almost not there
there is now more that is not you
but I know you

open-mouthed
a stone is the inside of the open air

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(I'm posting this for some friends who are in the midst of difficult times.)

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There's a moving and insightful essay "Of Grief and Poetry" by Sina Queyras on the Poetry Foundation blog, Harriet, with some beautiful and consolatory poems (and not the ones you might expect) as well as discussion.

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The flat stone resting on the little black chair sits on my desk. The stone was one discovered and given to me by one of my children on a visit to the very end of Point Pelee. The little chair comes from a doll house my wife's grandfather made for my daughter when he was an old man.