Grief is gargantuan,
flinging youth onto
tops of buildings
and dangling them
precariously.

Death is inevitable,
but for the young it is
atrocious and unfair.
Submerging hopes
and dreams into a
dark marsh of familial
despair.

I write to redeem our
mutual losses,
in which every heart
beats out the same rhythm,
pulsing redemption for us all.
Loving in spite of death.
Loving and going on.

Those lost are evergreen,
in places where hope is
neither felt or seen and in
all the hells we walk between.
Life is ongoing and so we wend
our way to love again.

Vicki Woodyard