A poem about grief

The last elegy

What can my words do?
Not bring men back to life.
Not make rose petals
fly from the mouths of barrels.
Not erase the myriad ripples
of time’s relentless consequence.

Love and beauty still exist
though it gets harder to see
through the haze of fear.
I’m privileged to suggest
that the world moves
regardless of man,
that self-preservation is trivial
in a cosmos of unknowns.

When you feel helpless
look to the stars
and remember how dark
the night is with eyes closed.
When you feel helpless
put your cheek to the ground
and breathe deep the absence
of murder and malice,
the earthly scents of soil and stone.

We all die alone.
What are we doing in the in between?
I want to believe
that people are good,
that these deaths matter
to everything that comes after.
I want to believe
that blood spilled in the streets
comes at a cost
never truly paid.

These lines drawn between us
disappear when viewed from space,
just as we disappear,
and only the lights in our makings
can be seen like distant suns
and the hope that light
is what we all eventually become.