Ode to Ida Lillian

Ode to Ida Lillian and Grief Poems

(Rachel Mariner)

Words can ease pain mildly if there is truth there.

An ice pack of words.

But I found nothing.

There are sappy ones, forgivably sappy, but not my thing.

Where is heaven exactly?

There are poems telling the grievers to buck up.

Look for the baby in the sunshine and stars and . . .

No thank you, completely unacceptable.

I need a poem that shows just the grief.

But pure grief is too painful.

Maybe especially for the poets.

Even Shakespeare softens the blow with a joke, a hope, an upswing.

Today that would be a lie.

I want a poem that tells of Ida Lillian Kuller.

Especially beloved.

The epicenter of earthquakes in hearts up and down the Eastern seaboard.

The poem should depict her house in ruins, toppled, wreckage.

I need a poem where far-flung friends wonder about so much pain.

And hate their helplessness.

Scroll furiously on an iPad past poems not good enough.

Still they stare and scroll and wish.

This is the grief poem I need.