I went back once
to that place of solitary stones.
It is a city of little boxes and violets.
Cars wind in and out of gravel lanes,
and always
there is a mound of flowers,
gladiolus, lilies, roses.
It is a smell too sweet to be pleasant.
An omen of someone’s leaving.
A mystery without inscription.
A stone will be raised later,
and someone will carry a single flower,
or a cloth of tears,
and stop for a moment
to listen to the traffic from the road.
But that will come later,
perhaps years,
perhaps never.
No one comes for pleasure.
No one comes for silence.
It is a city without noise.
The sound of the world outside
is the light above a tree,
a touch of fading warmth,
a memory stopped by time,
a piece of the heart forever severed.
I read the inscription on the stone
by her grave.
I’ve forgotten what it said,
something that tried to appease our grief,
chase away the fog.
I wonder why we do this to ourselves?
Build a sarcophagus of grief.
Put wrought iron fences around graveyards.
Pretend we have no guilt for dying.
She is a hurt wind,
a broken laugh,
a barren feather,
put here as if her soul
is now a box of decayed ash,
her memory,
the heavy odor of death.
Let’s dig all these places up!
Let’s scatter the stones.
Let’s go to the top of a hill
and look into the distance,
and say,
that is where they went,
faster than light,
alive and well,
into the future,
into forever,
laughing,
without pain,
flying.