THERE IS NO END TO THE SEASON OF GRIEF by Lisa Duggan

FOR MARIANNE March 11 1959 - February 12 2004

My beautiful cousin. In our hearts forever.

We like to imagine the place you live now

—you’re on a beach somewhere beautiful, 
   our every prayer an annoyance
You just sat down to a hot cup of coffee when you hear us crying
calling your name, from the other side of your kitchen wall 

We sent you off wrapped inside a silver casket 

whose gleaming cover hurt my feelings,
only Louise brave enough to shout
“Marianne, go find your joy!”

as they slid you into the hearse
above a chorus of sobs
 

I said nothing important or profound that day
nor that day in the hospital although it was all there, rehearsed, 
on the tip of my tongue
my stupid theories about The Soul, about energy never 
being created or destroyed, kept it to myself 
when the reality of your rapidly approaching death became crystal clear
as they removed your feeding tube

In silence I stared at the cliches, 
laid carefully at the foot of your bed
well meaning relatives, friends spoke
of God and Heaven, of Eternity, said

‘We’ll meet again’
 

But your seven year-old daughter clung to her beanie-baby instead
of those empty Catholic platitudes and your ten year-old boy, 
mute with worry, winced whenever 
anyone looked
his way
 
At the very end, you searched out my mother, 

mouthing slowly: 

‘What—do I do—now?’
 

In an email your sister reminds me it’s both always and never
the time to grieve, so I do a little bit each day, make it both my prayer and my penance
 
To regret the times I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t come!’, 
when you invited us for lunch, or to swim in the pool, 
me, and my little Alice
who will never know you because 
I couldn’t imagine that you,
or those sunny days

would ever end
 

I wish I could—just once!—channel Shakespeare, Rilke, or Lally
summon your existence with a poem, exalt your beauty
peck out that combination of letters, words and lines that heal
even as they tear, in their recounting of the glorious but painful, 

ordinary but beautiful, life you lead as

a daughter, a sister, a niece,
a wife, a mother, a friend,
a cousin.
 

My cousin.

You lie somewhere between the black ink and white paper of the poem
I still can’t write, my only consolation—my redemption
is knowing on that day, when you asked that question
the only true poet of the family was there

She held your hand and had the 

right words at her disposal

“Let go.”