Contributor: Bruce Levine

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Grief punctures the heart
And slices the soul
A love, if true, is never
Forgotten
And yet remains irretrievable
There is no cure
No antidote
For the cancer of grief
Which devours the body
And consumes the mind
With zombiesque ferocity
Ravaging the flesh of a
Walking carcass
Why Heaven has chosen
To perpetrate such a punishment
Is beyond human understanding
Mere mortals were never given
Powers sufficient to plunge
The depths of grief
Hope of happiness
Remains caged like a lion
A corpse being devoured by maggots
And yet, inextricably,
Destiny can intervene
Fate can conquer
The lassitude of time
Conspiracies unforeseen coalesce
Bridging oceans
With glacial understanding
That alone empowers
The universe
To swoop up two souls
Lost in the limbo of time
Destined to fulfill their fate
Carved with flint and stone
A cavern in granite
Now magically transformed
Into pavement as smooth as glass
As crystalline as a stream
Frozen motion
That recaptures the
Essence of life
Spreading a new love
Like a waterfall
Cascading against the rocks
In a rainbow of spray
To tie two people
In a ring of love
Forever sustained
By the growth of
A second heart


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Bruce Levine, a native Manhattanite, has spent his life as a writer of fiction and poetry and as a music and theatre professional. His literary catalogue includes four novels, short stories, humorous sketches, flash fiction, poetry, essays, magazine articles and a screenplay His works are published in over twenty-five on-line journals, over twenty-five books and his shows have been produced in New York and around the country. His work is dedicated to the loving memory of his late wife, Lydia Franklin, and his wife Jane. He lives in New York with Jane and their dog, Daisy. Visit him at www.brucelevine.com.