Originally posted 6/22/2013.  Original title, “Grief At The Graveside (Butterfly Language).”

Behind our formal speech at any graveside
we offer each other a butterfly language,
floating and whispering without obvious words.

We turn back and forth
and tell each other of life and death,
understand and are understood.

Go home, we say to each other
in this formless tongue.  Go home 
and be at peace

in the day to day
now that we have laid them to rest;
they have no more need of us. Remember

how they began and ended
whenever you think of them, remember 
what lay between those gates — 

who they were, who we were
with them, who we are now
without them.

The priests
have never had solid comfort 
for us.

It’s why we use butterfly language
to speak of this and do not rely upon 
the rough pulse of speech.  

It is older, smarter, tighter,
better on the breath, lighter in the ear.  
It heals.