Grief Is Not Like the Squirrel in My Garden

that’s been eating all my pansies,

eating them to the roots

so that nothing of beauty remains.

We were able to lure the squirrel

with sunflower seeds and peanut butter

and trap it in a cage and take it far away.

Grief is more like the mice that eat the lure,

then slip through the cage, though the holes

are tiny, the door shut tight.

Grief stays. It takes what I offer and escapes.

But it hasn’t devoured all that is beautiful.

See how the pansies are blooming.

Like the mice, grief makes a nest

in my garden. We live here together.

I’ve put away the cage.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer