Grief by Michael Lee Lyrics

The word settled inside the torso of a widow.
When it was removed it was buried in the dirt,
and sprouted. In Winter knives bloomed, each taken
down and struck over an anvil and reworked
into cowbells, and lockets, steel yokes the color
of yarrow. The word was broken down, and studied,
and what was learned was only the ways in which
it returns. Each knife buried, and each knife bloomed.
Grief is its own season. I am a descendant
of these traditions. I am a scholar of the word,
of the extra bone, and the silent knife in the side.
In my past life, I was a single crow perched
on a branch of a grief tree surveying the rain,
and it's easy cleansing metaphor. In this life
I have been the orchard keeper, tending each
winding tendril, naming and sharpening each
leaf and in my next one I suppose
I’ll be the orchard itself, or the hard rain
fastening shut the earth.