Liber Terrae - Chapter 61

Verses

We buried my brother on a cold morning when the ground resisted the shovel.

I hated the Earth for being hard when we needed her open.

By noon the sun softened the upper soil, which felt like an apology I had not requested.

People said he had returned to the Earth. I wanted to know when he had ever belonged to it willingly.

Grief makes ownership sound obscene.

The grave took his body but not the unfinished arguments, which remained distributed among us.

Months later, grass covered the disturbed patch more brightly than the field around it.

I resented that too.

The world has a vulgar habit of continuing after private catastrophes.

Then one evening I found the old cat asleep on his jacket and understood continuation was not the same as betrayal.

Dust to dust is not comfort. It is merely accurate.

Some truths become gentle only after we stop demanding that they console us.