MOURNING LITTLE SUMMIT-PEAK

A three-year-old son, lone pearl treasured so in the hand.

A sixty-year-old father, hair a thousand streaks of snow,

I can’t think through it—you become some strange thing,

and sorrow endless now you’ll never grow into a person.

There’s no swordstroke clarity when grief rips the heart,

and tears darkening my eyes aren’t rinsing red dust away,

but I’m still nurturing emptiness—emptiness of heaven’s

black black, this childless life stretching away before me.