A Greymouth Dinner Party

His death was a mere eight weeks raw
When I learned the loneliness of grief,
The cruelty of others
At a Greymouth dinner party.
There, too many glasses were raised to consider
the bad taste of suicide jokes, pot-shots at the vulnerable.
At the funeral, I had thought of my ancestors:
A distant grandfather and a great-grandmother
who had played bowls, turning them to show me their weight,
The way they would roll, nudge up to the kitty.
Their deaths had been proper. Expected.
Elderly mourners, stories of a life long-lived.
But life had thrown me a curve ball.
At the funeral, my mother had been cold and distant.
Now, I sat still at a dusk-shadowed table,
Saw outside, a black-backed gull hunched.
Eyes intent on her brown-mottled baby
Pecking a salty sanded shell. Chips of greenstone.
It knew the fragility of life. Of grief. Despair.
I clutched my pounamu pendant. Once his, from me.
Now mine again. Outside, the sea sighed. Salty.
Ceaseless as my waves of grief.