For Losing a Peer

We are spinning

beyond the natural order of things.

Tragedy insults our

logic

mortality

faith in all things mercy or karma.

It is tempting to hold God accountable for loss,

to assume a divine plan in the works,

to bandage over the raw sting of grief,

to hustle back to a sense of normalcy,

but we will resist.

They can keep their shallow quips -

everything happens for a reason

heaven must have needed another angel

God doesn’t give you more than you can handle -

keep it and stand back.

Give me room

while I swing this sorrow around

with anger and sadness and holy might!

Or lie down beside me while I drown

in anguish for all the ways

this world is now lacking.

And then, later on, when I can bear it,

help me look for glimmers of my person

still beating in the sounds of the earth,

still breathing in the wind’s cadence,

still very present across time and space.

From Ordinary Blessings: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Everyday Life

Inspiration for “Give Me Room” composed by Emerson Eads