Grief shows me just another sunset

Dusk is dancing & all the visual technologies at hand feel
overwhelmed: mobile eye, pit pastels, graphic card.

It’s down to language, then, imagine.

Above parade pearlescent clouds
looking more permanent than us. 
Behind you, incandescent gloaming 
rips through time, retina, skin.

This clarity, it blinds the soul, its old familiar. 

Listen
how it sings
setting every edge on fire.

Watch
how it streams, 
extends, pinks up.

Maybe now you share my sense 
of consolation:

that those who went before us,
& who loved us,

those whom we love, 
still,

lived 

to see this light.

Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig is a translator, editor, and author. Her poetry publications include the pamphlet kinscapes and the anthology The Joy of Living (both with Dreich). Her work has appeared in various publications, including Poetry Scotland, Dust Poetry, and Neologism.