Imagine Grief as a fisherman,
who smells the storms of tomorrow
and tells the weather by the colors in the clouds.
He has large, hard working hands,
a beard, gray and matted
as if a songbird could build its nest in it.
His face is leathered from years of hauling nets
onto an old fishing boat that would brave
any mood of the sea.
Salt water has painted the horizon on his eyebrows.

Grief, the fisherman, doesn’t talk much
but his whole demeanor reflects
his closeness to the deep
that has left a melancholy as old as time.
He will ask Which love have you lost?

Grief, when left alone,
can be found where the songbirds sleep
and where curled leaves are
probed by a warbler’s beak.

Grief will whistle like a towhee
and sometimes can be heard as a black phoebe.
They, in return, rest on his broad shoulders,
in his beard fledglings find shelter.

Grief knows that the songbirds will always return
for they are lured by the blue in his eyes,
a blue reminiscent of their home in the skies.
But beware, if they linger for too long,
they may get lost in the sea he dreams about.

This poem is inspired by a German text I wrote up for a friend. I was trying to explain how I picture Grief as a person in the poems Grief and Grief II. Here is the German beginning. The English version is more of an elaboration than a translation.

Grief ist ein Fischermann, der in seinem Leben viel draußen bei rauen Wetterbedingungen gearbeitet hat. Er riecht den Sturm von morgen und liest das Wetter in den Wolken. Große Hände, verfilzter grauer Bart und ledriges Gesicht. Er spricht nicht viel. Grief wird von einer gewissen Melancholie umgeben, die ihn zu einem Menschen macht, den man einladen möchte. In der Hoffnung, man könne ihn aufheitern. Aber er wird so oft missverstanden. Unbeobachtet, verbringt er viel Zeit bei den Singvögeln. Sie fressen Kerne und Samen aus seinen Händen, ruhen sich auf seinen breiten Schultern aus, wärmen sich in seinem Bart. Manchmal antwortet er mit Pfiffen, die die Vogelmelodien nachahmen. Die Vögel kehren immer wieder zu ihm zurück, weil sie von dem Blau in seinen Augen angezogen werden. Ein Blau, das sie an ihr Zuhause in den Lüften erinnert.