GRIEF Poem: What Stones Turn, by Bill Schreiber

This is not morning, evening or any time at all.
The dial on the clock never changes,
watches stopped the second
I didn’t live here anymore.
A nine-year-old friend who died at twenty
plays wiffle ball in the yard with me
near the tree brought down years ago by lightning
as an owl calls from the corner.
Only I hear it and feel what is lost.

The path is roughed rocks
pushed from the earth each spring
and ready to keep me upright
with their tenuous traction. But find one
too smooth, I slide between, my breath
catches on memory’s point
and leaves an ache too far
to be only another hunger.

Some things aren’t meant to heal.
I cross oceans as leaves on sidewalks swirl
and stones turn in the earth with my passage —
I dream of a home I know isn’t mine
but am too old to go back,
too young to do anything else.

Author: poetryfest

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