“Elegy for Hannah Brockman” by Andreas Gripp
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Elegy for Hannah Brockman” by Andreas Gripp.
Elegy for Hannah Brockman
By Andreas Gripp
On the day of your
Bat Mitzvah, you twirled
beneath the snow,
your unpierced tongue
extending
like an ophidian
from a cleft, trans-
muted from a staff,
tasting the sacred
nectar
of the sky, as if a Levite
under manna;
knowing cold can
speak of love as
well as warmth,
when the flakes will
plunge together
by the trillions,
parachute
out the nimbusโ
vowing to drape
your spirit like
a quilt; yet
not so flushed
theyโd fall as limpid
rain; trickling
like a creek from out your
eye, spilling in the
dirge of human mourning,
then freezing like the
wax along the sides of
Shabbat candles,
or maybe they were
Seder, when the light
can grieve no more,
when the smell of
rose & lily
comes and goes,
petals fastened tightly
in the dusk,
fearing
theyโll be pried on
blessัd ground,
once the footfall
of the night
has shed its shoes.
Copyright ยฉ Andreas Gripp
Previously published in Delirium Lullaby, 2025.
Andreas Gripp lives in Essex County, Ontario, with his wife, the writer Carrie Lee Connel. Delirium Lullaby: a collection of poems favoured and new, has recently been published by Black Mallard. His next book of poetry, Last of the Bons Vivants, is forthcoming in 2026.
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