Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

by Max Porter

The friends and family who had been hanging around being kind had gone home to their own lives. When the children went to bed the flat had no meaning, nothing moved.

I won’t leave until you don’t need me any more.

But I care, deeply. I find humans dull except in grief.

There is a fascinating constant exchange between Crow’s natural self and his civilised self, between the scavenger and the philosopher, the goddess of complete being and the black stain, between Crow and his birdness. It seems to me to be the self-same exchange between mourning and living, then and now. I could learn a lot from him.

Moving on, as a concept, is for stupid people, because any sensible person knows grief is a long-term project.