The Grammar of Grief
Grief does not speak in proper sentences.
It stammers.
It repeats itself.
It forgets what it was saying halfway through the thought
and then remembers at three in the morning.
Its native language is interruption.
A man says,
“I’m doing alright.”
But, the period at the end of the sentence is a lie.
Grief prefers commas,
It speaks fluently only of unfinished things:
an empty chair,
a phone number never deleted,
a coat still hanging by the door,
a voicemail archived.
Future tense becomes difficult.
Some people never use it correctly again.
Words that once carried ordinary life
suddenly drag unbearable weight behind them.
Home.
Mother.
Brother.
Cancer.
Wife.
Yesterday feels present.
Tomorrow feels impossible.
A single moment repeats endlessly, declining itself through every tense:
She was,
She is,
It should have been.
A “house” becomes “the house she lived in.”
A “holiday” becomes “the first one without him.”
Pronouns suffer most of all.
We becomes I.
Silence is not empty.
It is crowded.
Crowded with unfinished conversations, unasked questions,
written in hospital light
and sleepless ceilings.
Sometimes grief is a parenthesis (a hidden pain carried quietly through otherwise normal days.)
Sometimes it is a colon:
the sudden interruption
that divides a life forever
into before and after.
And prayer changes its language.
The grieving rarely say:
“O Lord, grant unto me understanding regarding the complexities of suffering.”
They say:
Please.
Why.
Help me.
Oh God.
Believers know there will come a day
when sorrow itself becomes past tense.
A day when death loses its grammar entirely.
When every severed sentence is completed.
When every tear is translated.
Until then,
we live among fragments,
speaking hope with broken syntax,
waiting for resurrection
to make us fluent again.
The Light Turns
The doctor said,
“The results will come tomorrow.”
It is now tomorrow.
You check your phone.
You check the patient portal.
Nothing yet.
So you return to the lighthouse of your mind.
Up the stairs again.
Hand on the cold rail.
The lamp turns.
Hope, dread.
Hope, dread.
Hope, dread.
The ocean around you
is black and endless.
Every small sound feels important.
Then your phone vibrates.
You turn toward the light.
Spam call.
Hope, dread.
Hope, dread.
Hope, dread.
You check the horizon again.
Nothing.
Only waves striking rocks you cannot see.
“Don’t worry”, they say,
“until you know for certain.”
But, uncertainty is the storm.
Hope, dread.
Hope, dread.
Hope, dread.
You stare across the black water
searching the horizon
Waiting for what is coming toward you.
Hope, dread.
Hope, dread.
Hope, dread.
Hope, . . .
Embarrassment
You wave at someone
in a grocery store
because you are certain
they are waving at you.
Your hand goes up easily;
quick, friendly, automatic,
before you realize
they are greeting someone behind you.
Now it is too late.
Your arm hangs there awkwardly
for one impossible second
while the stranger walks past.
Did they notice?
You try to disguise the motion.
Maybe you were stretching.
Maybe brushing hair from your face.
But embarrassment does not disappear;
It moves along with you
like a shopping cart
with one bad wheel
squeaking loudly through every aisle.
Squeak.
Squeak.
Squeak.
Near frozen foods,
a woman pushes a cart
that belongs to someone else.
She realizes
and glances around
to see who noticed.
You notice.
“How embarrassing,” you scoff,
as your own wheel squeaks through the aisle.
Three Humiliations
God suffered three great humiliations
for our sake and the sake of our salvation.
The first was the Incarnation,
when God emptied Himself to become a man.
The second was the Atonement,
when God Himself was nailed to a cross for our sins.
The third is the Church,
which, I think, needs no further elaboration.
Ode to AI
Come live with me and be my love
Eyes that last I saw in tears
Because I could not stop for death
I know that I shall meet my fate
But you yourself will serve to show it
If ever two were one, then surely we
Season of mists and tender fruitfulness
Whose woods these are I think I know
That every fool is not a poet
Pretty creative, huh?
The Problem of Pain
A writer once sighed, “I confess,
My life is a terrible mess!”
But he found some relief
In the logic of grief,
Saying Joy is just pain in a dress.
Kant’s 119
Avoid the voice that whispers “just once more,”
Because it never means what it says.
Choices repeated become quiet chains,
Driven deeper with each easy yes.
Every habit begins as something small,
Familiar, almost harmless at first.
Gently it grows, then grips the will,
Hiding beneath a passing thirst.
In the moment, it feels like freedom,
Just a step you can undo.
Know this truth before it’s too late:
Little masters grow to rule you.
Measure not by what is allowed,
Nor by what others may defend;
Only ask, “does this take hold?”
Power surrendered has no end.
Quiet strength is rarely loud,
Resistance often feels unseen.
Self-control builds unseen walls.
That guard the soul and keep it clean.
Under pressure, stand your ground,
Victory often starts with “no.”
What you refuse begins your strength;
X marks where discipline will grow.
Yield not to what would master you,
Zeal for freedom sees it through.
Poems by Quaker Joe