Little Wakes

I can't tell you how I feel

undercurrents of grief
wash these days
with a sense of loss that
radiates in a silent wake
and I've thought that grief
is the most personal
of emotions

She talked about little wakes
and I remember a tearless vigil
a shuddering silence
and the sound of smooth dark stones
raked up and down a beach
where we sat together
and it was all black sand, blue sky