Grief And Grieving

are both personal processes.

For them to be authentic
to the loss that they observe
they must surely be private,
or rather reserved for the few
with a similar sense of loss
for the person who is grieved for.

To live 'amid a national grief'
is to live where nothing seems real.
It is to live where the media
compounds individual losses 
until they lack all individuality.

The presentation of loss
simultaneously represents
everybody and nobody,

The listener soon becomes inured
to what they hear, immune to the grief
for being unable to recognise the grievers.