Who can say how many spoonfuls of dirt it takes
the prisoner to tunnel out of sorrow,
or how long those bound and gagged by fear have
to work on the knots at their wrists?
For the mourner no one’s as real as the beloved
flickering up ahead. What ocean wave, sand storm,
house fire is large enough to draw the aggrieved
out of anguish? Those without God –
who unlocks for them the sealed room
in which they languish, who teaches them
to snap the window shade their grief has pulled,
and look outside? When they get to the station
and the train’s pulled out, who do they thank
for the newly mopped floors, the flowers
wilting in plastic tubs, unlit places and names
up on the board like stars waiting to be plugged in?
This surprise, this almost blinding rush of air-
what the bird feels when the egg first cracks?
Betsy Sholl of Portland is Maine’s poet laureate. Hafiz of the poem’s title was a mystical poet of 14th century Persia.
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