How to translate this plainest hour,
grief’s land mines plotted
across the hours’ winter fields,
ambush planted under every step.

Some days, a journey. Some nights,
a fight through foreign dreams.
One breath, one word at a time, here,
now, yes. A phrasebook, color-coded.

One jay in the pine, turning blue
away from gravity, into a jewel.
A bench where the fountain mutters
and children laugh from the swings.

It flashes back to you in short bits,
in syllables you learn again,
a winged pleasure, a relief,
the feeling in your hands.