Compounded Losses

Continual Healing

I whistle for my horse, 
but he’s dead. Been gone
for a while, buried behind the barn.
Thought I’d move past this 
by now, but there’s more. Compounded
losses over years. It takes effort to carry 
sorrows. Like a pantry, stores
of emotions, feelings, deep knowing tucked away, 
always at the ready; grief
on the shelf with loose lids,
just over from bottled up despairs of many shades, but not
as deep as desolation, shoved into dented cans with rusty seams, 
in hopes it doesn’t spill out of sticky shadows, ooze 
inconsolable, primordial wailing, real
and present when we notice
losses
	leave
		unsettling 
			voids,
				never
filled to satisfaction, but even
these become part of our wholeness,
like base alloy, makes
us stronger, and we are 
invited to shine
in other ways, to glisten
through tears,
to trust
Mystery.

Shadowy shelves. Photo by Andy Kennaly, July 2025.