The origin of the word trauma 
Is not just "wound," but "piercing" or "turning," 
As blades do when finding home. 
Grief commands its own grammar, 
Structured by intimacy & imagination. 
We often say: 
We are beside ourselves with grief. 
We can't even imagine. 
This means anguish can call us to envision 
More than what we believed was carriable 
Or even survivable. 
This is to say, there does exist 
A good grief.

The hurt is how we know 
We are alive & awake; 
It clears us for all the exquisite, 
Excruciating enormities to come. 
We are pierced new by the turning 
Forward.

All that is grave need 
Not be a burden, an anguish. 
Call it, instead, an anchor, 
Grief grounding us in its sea. 
Despair exits us the same way it enters- 
Turning through the mouth. 
Even now conviction works 
Strange magic on our tongues. 
We are built up again 
By what we 
Build/find/see/say/remember/know. 
What we carry means we survive, 
It is what survives us. 
We have survived us. 
Where once we were alone, 
Now we are beside ourselves. 
Where once we were barbed & brutal as blades, 
Now we can only imagine.