River of Grief
Cathy Hailey
July 2, 2023
I.
In Uvalde County, Texas, the Leona River
rises north, flows eighty-three miles.
For decades, irrigation carried its water to local farms,
until it overflowed in 1894,
destroying a railroad bridge, bringing ruin to farms.
Drought in the 1950s dried it up,
exposing remnants of indigenous peoples.
The Leona rose again.
Did you know, even inland rivers
can be influenced by the moon?
Scientists call it semidiurnal oscillation,
cite the Leona as evidence,
tides rising and falling, twice each day.
II.
Longing runs long like a river,
levels rising one day,
diminishing the next.
The ache doesn’t go away.
The river traveling to the heart ebbs and flows,
an inner pressure rising until a dam breaks,
releasing a torrent as each new death occurs,
especially the death of a child.
III.
Today, my river spills over
as I hear parents mourn fourth-grade children:
a girl who painted herself with blood
after reaching a hand
into her friend’s gunshot wound,
playing dead to survive,
another identified by her green Converse high tops,
decorated in ink, a heart on the toe.
I hear shrieks and screams of parents
desperate to save children, to know their fate,
only to be fought off by police.
IV.
When a mother and daughter
arrive in Uvalde from Houston,
I feel my river overflow:
arteries, capillaries tightening, heartache increasing.
They drove four hours
to place flowers and a stuffed animal
beside nineteen crosses for children,
two for teachers.
They knew no one in Uvalde
but understood the devastation of burying a child,
only three years since their loss:
son and brother gunned down by a girlfriend.
How do you heal? journalists asked,
You never heal, the younger admitted.
I still feel the pain every single day.
V
When raindrops or skipped rocks hit still river water,
when geese or ducks poke beaks in glass,
immersing heads to catch insects, fish,
undulation forms a ring that ripples
into circles, concentric,
each one larger than the last.
For parents of victims, loss is exponential,
each new death magnifying memory
(I lost a daughter. too. It doesn’t matter how.)
and I return to the river at the moment of disruption,
the crest of catastrophe when the darkness
of moonless night first enveloped me,
river waters rippling eternal influence on my river’s course.
VI.
The river of grief is long and unpredictable.
Sometimes I’m in an innertube floating on a lazy river,
a necessary slowdown to process,
to reflect, to allow myself to breathe.
When the tides turn, grief is more like the Leona,
its flood,
its drought,
even for the faithful.
Cathy Hailey teaches in John Hopkins University’s MA in Teaching Writing program and previously taught high school English and Creative Writing. She is the Northern Region VP of The Poetry Society of Virginia and organizes In the Company of Laureates. Her chapbook, I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth, was published by Finishing Line Press.
