Entertaining Two Grieving Guests... Poem by RIC BASTASA

when both of you arrive this morning
carrying with you
your loads of sorrow
i am ready with my arms
and words of comfort
for i will be with you
not only in happiness
but also in sorrow

and i listen a lot,
serve you drinks,
offer
you lunch,
sweet pineapple chunks for desert
red wine for some finish

then you keep on telling me about
what really happened
how things can be unbearable at times

i listen a lot,
i perfectly understand
the pain,
and i empathize with that lingering
grief that sticks
in your hearts like
some kind of a virus,

i offer you more drinks, because drinks can take us
towards other places of our hearts
a little comfort and diversion is needed on these
harsh times of your life,

we let time flow,
temperatures change,
words take unexpected shapes
your hearts begin to catch the fire
of survival
somehow even at this moment you must have sensed
another direction
to move on,
the options are too many
to count
the world is one big
space for
experimenters

this is an exciting world
full of surprises

then you like the way things have been moving
how accommodating can i be,
how understanding
we signified goodbye,
i send you both off the door of the house
we had the last drink
for the road

it is already dark
and the world is silent
as another
kind of listener

and then i am alone again,
taking all the glasses and spoons
back to their proper order

and when everything is set,
kept,
and in place
i go inside my room
also ready to handle those heavy burdens
that are mine and
mine alone

i am in this
kind of state where
sharing them
cannot lighten me

for they too
have been burdened enough
with what they think
they cannot bear
anymore....