One brother is spending the week in silence.
One brother is spending the week in Amsterdam.
These are not metaphors.
I am spending the week in an alley amongst the dumpsters and broken glass and who knows what that is on the ground
Somewhere between weeping and not weeping.
This is metaphor
And having spent a good portion of my time in this alley,
it has been swept clean and the dumpsters have been lined up just so and the whatever that was has been washed away.
And I have probably made friends with a cunning rat or two and helped some homeless dude find lodging.
All this is metaphor.
Grief puts you in unexpected geography,
Locales not usually associated with your life.
And you spend a lot of time there,
Weeping and wishing you would stop weeping then thinking, okay, I have stopped weeping
Just to start all over again.
Some of this is metaphor.
And the alley is
some place.
I mean alleys are always the in between places.
The places that separate there
from over here.
And all that may or may not be metaphor.
I’m not sure.
thecourseofourseasons 
This is brilliant, Kathleen. What a stark, honest look at the grieving journey. So, so fine.
I liked the repetition of the idea of metaphor throughout making the reader pause each time.
Sometimes the metaphor is all we have to hold on to. (K)
I think this is my favourite of your poems, kiddo. I love the tone, the topic, the observations and I know that alley very well. (I especially like your helping some dude find lodging while you’re there. Smiles.)
Loved that.
Grief is indeed an alley separating two places. I’ve been grieving my mother since she died in June. The alley is starting to get narrower. Excellent write.
This is wonderful.. in some cases I wonder if it’s the metaphor or what’s real that hurts the most. Love the images – a fabulous poem
I know we each feel alone in grief, and we are, but we are not, for we all have been there. There is compassion and empathy. Many of my words are birthed from grief.
We all deal with grief in different ways. This part resonated with me:
Grief puts you in unexpected geography,
Locales not usually associated with your life.
And you spend a lot of time there
Thanks for joining us in OLN Kathleen ~
Feeling drawn to this poem
I weep and mourn
Beside you.
Feeling helpless or of less help. The same.
Perched low looking up from the cavern of I’m still here, now where are you.
Not wanting to believe in that that sustains the duality of existence being that of nonexistence.
❤