Before grieving
I could hear but heard the past most clearly, the voices in the moment
Warped like waves at a puddle’s edge bouncing backward
I could move but was walking ahead of myself, my feet traveling
over a landscape I could not feel beneath me
I could see but saw only context, I could smell but smelled only
The rainy earth of medicine
I felt time pass but my fear was a half-second quicker
than my certainty though they walked with the same shadow
I understood but like understanding a letter written to someone else
Or a message that once understood cannot be answered
I remembered but I remembered like a book where I’d underlined
every word leaving me with all significance and no sense of direction
I could tell the dying his own death story but in the telling fell
Out of my own life a stranger holding his father’s hand
Translations from the English 
That last couplet – incredibly moving and personal!
Very moving, Jeff.
This is very compelling.
I understand the feeling at a moment like this, like loss as a near-death/out-of-body experience, watching something that must be happening to someone else, because you don’t want it to be happening to you.
Stunning, Jeff.
A beautiful poem, Jeff.
Thanks, Chris. Hope you and Tanis are well.