Grief moved in next door.
Stepping over my welcome mat. Dragging mud across the welcome mat.
It rarely knocks when it comes to visit.
Grief makes itself at home in my home. 
It comes and goes as it pleases, neither friend or foe.
Grief wraps its arms around my heart. It can be tender. 
No longer taking me to my knees.
Grief sits patiently, waiting in the space between endings and beginnings.

- Carol Coal

About Carol: I moved to the Sierras from Southern California at 18 until a restless gypsy spirit, the new love of a woman and a ‘49 Chevy pickup found us traveling the California coast through Oregon,Washington, Canada, a cold-ass winter in Wyoming, and eventually back to California. Locations and love change; the next seven years were spent in a rustic cabin on140 acres in Northern California. Today I live an hour north with 27,000+ other people. Grief has visited repeatedly the last two years, rarely knocking. Stripping protection and pretense bare. Profoundly sacred and heartbreaking sad.