Consolations of the Crushed

A community we loved

became a nightmare

A people we poured our lives into

poured us out

like borrowed paint for a project,

disloyal to the architects of vision

We weren’t the only ones

a weary cloud of witnesses endeared

whose tears water the ground with integrity

We were shepherded by a gentle hand and ushered to a spacious place

rescued in our day of trouble

supplied with oxygen of landscape

now sustained through winters of our grief

Still haunted by betraying hugs

still shaking from the knife,

that blade of silence stalking

reverberations of retracted trust

malign our bodies

The friends we once consoled

became a phantom

I still hear them in our day of distress

who found a way to unsee us,

deleted the files of our shared investment

We surrendered the story in our leaving

tossed the barrels of livelihood

so we could taste freedom

Years later we still languish

but our bodies, lighter

brimming with brighter vocation

we wear a weathered, watered presence

permeable to kindred cohorts of pain

We hold forgiveness as a liquid

ungraspable solvent

fermented in mystery and faith

We offer pardon to the parliament of ordained pretense

We offer silence to the vicar of our vindication

We offer shelter to all expelled by heavy hands

and lift our voices for the gentle, slow reviving of theirs

Image: First Days of Grief by Menega Sabidussi (https://pixels.com/featured/first-days-of-grief-menega-sabidussi.html)