Editor: Well-known local poet and former OBcean, Steve Kowit passed recently.
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By Jim Moreno
Grief is an inconvenient companion,
In the grocery store line, in the middle of a sentence,
Hanging clothes on the line, it doesn’t care,
It grabs you by your lapels, It grabs you by your throat,
It low blows your gut, It shakes you and shakes you,
Fills your eyes with rain, then suddenly,
It lets you go. Just like that?gone.
It doesn’t care where it flows,
It must gush & flow; return later when you
Least expect it and shake you and shake you again.
There’s nothing you can do about it,
There’s nothing you can do but
Ride The Inconvenient Storm…
It helps you weather this rain of loss,
It helps you relax, breathe a little better
with this love loss attack stealing color
and leaving only black and white,
making food taste like cardboard,
Hiding your hunger under a small black rock,
or switching to a memo urging you
to eat all the cookies and sweets.
One day, my beautiful friend, one day
that stab will be a prick,
One day that prick will be an ache,
One day that ache will be a new song,
A lovely, sweet song with teardrops of love.
Your great ocean loss will save you,
Your terrible love loss will serve you,
Remind you, teach you lessons of precious life,
Death teaching Life, Loss amping Love.
You’ll see colors of blue sky & red rose again,
You’ll see rainbow colors of life once more,
Sights and smells of spring and summer
Will sing you as you wake to the soft, pastel dawn,
But not right now, my grieving friend.
Not just now.
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Jim Moreno lives in City Heights. His neighborhood has lots of flowers and is like the United Nations. He just planted Japanese squash, Persian verse, and African Umoja in his small, love garden. Moreno’s ukulele is a tenor that he plays when the hibiscus bloom. He feels lucky Steve Kowit was his friend.
This was originally published in the San Diego Free Press, our online media partner. The SDFP is hosting many poets during April’s Poetry Month.
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