if we are lucky

there is a sadness

so great we don't even allow

ourselves to reconcile with it, or

even recognize it, until many years

have passed

so instead we become

like the marmot and we bury

ourselves in some deep forgetting

to hibernate until the winter of our hardships

have certainly passed and spring has gone from

full bloom to the languorous warmth of summer with

the brine of beauty, golden, enfolding all of us

only then do we dare,

if we are lucky, to look at

and understand what we have

been through, and to grieve the life

we have lost

only then if we are lucky

and allow ourselves to unfold

do we step into the benevolence

of our new existence