Love and Gain Loss

I don’t know
How are we honest
About loss

We feel it
We feel the
Not-the-presence from what is
No longer there

It’s rather plain
All the small things
That don’t quite work right
Anymore
Or at least don’t work
The way they used to
When
What is missing now
Was there

But then
The missing is another
Something
Too

It has been added
And we’re supposed to deal
With less
Than we had before

I don’t know
The paradox of
Loss and gain
Or
Loss and loss

Escapes me for compassion
Even in
A philosophy
Of love
Which is the “love”
Part
Of the “love of wisdom”

Though love might say
With philosophy
Or away from formal justifying
That everything should be embraced
          What we have
          What we no longer have
          (I know
          like hugging
          a phantom
          somehow)

Well
My friend is gone
And other friends are gone
And something of good
Feeling’s
Gone as well
Though ironically
(and paradoxically)
I suppose
We may need more such feeling
In these times

All right
No supposing

This is when we say
God
Of goodness
Help us through this time
For you are author and sustainer
Of everything beneficent
Plus
The way
(you show the way)
To deal with
What happens
And is
Injurious

The answer as in all things
Must be love
And love somehow in
The inquiry
As well
Which is added
To the present pain
In
Our reasons for it
Any of it
Plus the lack thereof
(of reason)

Clearly
Then
We go back and forth
And not so clearly

Why the loss
Even why
In the first place
Love

Knowing
And not knowing
Love is the means
The resorting
The resource
And was
At first
And shall be last
The seal

Our pledge
That is
An answer
With a reason
From
The start
And now even
Our gratitude
To go on
Positive
And with
Anticipation

C L Couch

(on the death of a friend)


Photo by Kseniia Rastvorova on Unsplash