Good Grief

The saying “Winter weakens - Spring kills.” rattles around in my head a lot this time of year. It reminds me that the sun doesn’t care about sadness and sadness doesn’t care about the sun. It reminds me that light does have the capacity to change a person, but some days we are black holes even under a blue bird sky. 
Spring has no place for grief - yet here it is - and in it, I don’t know which is more difficult- stillness, or the unceasing forward motion of time. 
I’m feeling ok this spring - but I remember sharply the times that I wasn’t. If you’re sad and you feel like this season is mocking you - I’m sorry. Here is something I wrote a couple years ago when I lost my good dog. 
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Grieving my dead dog in springtime 
feels a lot like pouting at an orgy.
Everyone is drunk on green,
blooming and reaching and fanning their tails-
even the breeze is a flirt.
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Enough flowers and good feelings to drench the whole world over in love
and I'm sobbing over what's left of his shit in the yard.
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The physical stuff 
-
it's sticky.
-
I am attached to his body
So much that I could feel the weight of every shovel full of dirt on my own chest
and still do - waking up breathless - wanting to dig him back out of that heavy hole
to hold his bones.
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My hand will sometimes rest on a boulder
just as easy as it would the top of his head 
when I would let my hand down by my side
and there he'd be
and there he's not.
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I can take a leaf in my fingers 
and for a second
fold his soft ear,
or grab a young pine branch
how I would tease his big whip tail with a tug. 
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It’s like he's just become the place -
and I wonder if I have to die 
to do that too.