Ornament

Of all the gifts
you gave me then-
I treasure this one
the knowledge of grief
and how to wear it
wrapped like a band around
my arm, a signal to the
knowing, the fellow wounded,
the ones that walk around
with stones in places
where once things beat
wild and free, the ones
who stay awake at night
tracing faces in the
bare ceilings, seeing demons
in the wall, and screaming children
and wait, hopeless, helpless,
who,at first light will rise
to put on
Life
and pretend that they go on.