March 15, 2011

Clean Sheets

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing."

Lewis called it grief. He called it fear too. "The fluttering in the stomach, the restlessness, the yawning." Some would call it love.

I feel this way with you.
Not isolated fear,
Not lonely grief,
Not even the singular beauty of love.

All three.
All at once.

This is the common experience.

Our grief and love and fear,
all together in the dry mouth of humanity.