An open sandy shell 
on the beach
empty but beautiful
like a memory
of a protected previous self.
The most difficult griefs
ones in which
we slowly open
to a larger sea, a grander
sweep that washes
all our elements apart.

So strange the way
we are larger
in grief
than we imagined
we deserved or could claim
and when loss floods
into us
like the long darkness it is
and the old nurtured hope
is drowned again
even stranger then
at the edge of the sea
to feel the hand of the wind
laid on our shoulder
reminding us
how death grants
a fierce and fallen freedom
away from the prison 
of a constant
and continued presence,
how in the end
those who have left us
might no longer need us
with all our tears
and our much needed 
measures of loss
and that their own death
is as personal 
and private
as that life of theirs,
which you never really knew,
and another disturbing thing,
that exultation
is possible without them.

And they for themselves
in fact
are glad to have let go
of all the stasis 
and the enclosure
and the need for them to live
like some prisoner
that you only wanted
to remain incurious
and happy in your love
never looking for the key
never wanting to
turn the lock and walk
away
like the wind
unneedful of you,
ungovernable,
unnamable,
free.