Strawberry Moonlight

M.H. John

This poem came from the strange place grief leaves behind, where someone can be gone and yet somehow still exist everywhere. I used the ocean in a symbolic way because there is something about its vastness that reminds me of loss. How you can look out at something endless and still be searching for one person. How memory can turn waves into familiar faces, and horizons into places you almost believe they might return from.I think grief is a lot like the tide. Some days it pulls gently at your feet, and other days it takes everything with it. But somewhere between holding on and learning to let go, we keep searching for the pieces of people we loved. Sometimes I think we don’t miss people because they disappeared. We miss them because they became a part of how we see the world.