Brownie Oakes

How can this single pound of flesh

that I could grasp in one hand

hold all this sadness, all this love?

It is limitless, an impossible weight under the quantum of my gaze.

Though my back is straight, I carry the burden everywhere. 

No one sees it, 

I don't point it out, 

but it is there, 

holding space, 

the elephant in this shell.

And still, to the beat of its own march, this flesh invites more. 

A pied piper of lost souls and broken hearts, 

I carry it along this lonely procession, 

through seasons of sorrow and joy. 

I'll bear this magical pound of flesh until it's drum goes quiet

and we lay alongside each other in the earth,

gracefully giving back all that we have borne.