These Days

“Of blessed memory” is a phrase
I’m using way too much — as too many,
of too many generations are
passing. Millennia of Jewish life
task us with this phrase, when the dark
horseman chases down one more friend,
one more relative, one more former
lover, or friend’s former lover.

As a young man, this seemed trite as
velour track suits and leg warmers —
a silhouette of a rite, sans content,
like the hollow chrysalis from
a monarch butterfly I found
October fifteenth.

But now it’s pandemic-life, not a
trio of days go by that I don’t
grace someone with this blessing,
now a great comfort — though I’m
not exactly sure why?

Loss always is present, like the scab
that takes so long to heal, because
picking at it is a cheap ecstasy.

But “of blessed memory” is a circular
shape linking dead and alive. It is warm
milk at 2 AM — a solace that
tall or short, quiet or loud, kind or
selfish, we remain engraved on both
heart and stone.

Gary D. Grossman
Verse-Virtual, January 2024