Comparative Hearts
By Karen
I read a remark critiquing a poem- as people will for many reasons- to stress how really smart they are, to be fair, be kind, to press self-serving lips to what is judged to be superior ass- and rarely, every now and then because the poem opens up the heart and breaks a silence. But I read a remark about how hurt one must feel when personal grief is over-shadowed by the fetishistic mourning of a national catastrophe in which thousands were breakfast for Beelzebub while close beside, lay a dying loved one. I thought of all the ways things are- how grief cannot compare to grief, one lesser to a greater part, as though pain has any means at all of measure save by those whose lives are calculated studies. Their eyes made small from seeing what is bigger, wanting more and even sometimes, growing ill from it. For those whose grieving breathes just like a bellows, they are buckets: scooped out wells of self, holding what they hold, overflowing as they will- most often growing deeper, never full. Written January 2nd, 2002 © on Jan 02 2002 12:26 AM PST 18 • 0 • 9
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"I read a remark critiquing a poem- as people will ..."