Louise Erdrich: "Grief"

Sometimes you have to take your own hand
as though you were a lost child
and bring yourself stumbling
home over twisted ice.

Whiteness drifts over your house.
A page of warm light
falls steady from the open door.

Here is your bed, folded open.
Lie down, lie down, let the blue snow cover you.



"Grief" by Louise Erdrich. Text as published in Original Fire: Selected and New Poems (Harper Perennial, 2004).

Art credit: "Walking on Thin Ice," photograph by X-ample.