I Wake to Grief, and Take My Waking Slow

I wake to grief, and take my waking slow.
The morning brings you no unfailing love;
I cannot tell you what I do not know.

I wish that I could tell you how to go,
that wisdom kills what longing cannot move;
but I wake to grief myself, and take it slow.

There ought to be some way for love to grow,
a releasing of celebratory doves –
but I cannot tell you what I do not know.

If I could bring you peace, dear heart, I’d show
you how many of your fears I could remove;
so I wake to grief, and take my waking slow.

My faith was something simple, long ago,
is simple still, but grown with pain enough
that I cannot tell you what I do not know.

The world parades its fancies in a glow
of farcical illusions none can prove;
and so I wake to grief, and take my waking slow.
I cannot tell you, love, what I don’t know.

* With acknowledgments to Theodore Roethke for the first (and repeated) line, and to W. H. Auden for the third (and repeated) line.