Skip to content

The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

The Graves

I would sacrifice the universe
for one human,
one pair of eyes that shine with life.
Topple this stone,
these gray markers
incomprehensible losses
of the infinitely precious.
Seeds in the daunting harvest
of the wilderness.

How it hurts
to know the mourning sounds
that attended these graves.
The empty places,
the lonely bed,
the chair at the table.
How huge their absence.
There are billions of galaxies
to each one,
a sparkle of light
coming from the dune of creation.

How do you measure death?
The universe never lived
until I came.
Never loved,
until a hand touched me with desire.
Tell me why,
in this bone yard,
how this comes to pass?
How God emerges from the dust,
then ceases to exist?

Published inIndex of all Poems