Cemetery

What one needs at a cemetery:

1. creepiness
2. quiet paranoia
3. headstones w/ psalms etched on crosses
4. epithets which may not have been entirely true
5. gravediggers' shovels
6. religious monuments
7. solid terra firma
8. hallelujahs and amens sung from neighboring church bells
9. a potpourri of pine needles, leaves and debris underfoot
10. a Bresson black 'n' white moon
11. rusty crosses and dates w/ no names

I went into a cemetery, darkly dark and alive, w/ spirits of people I've known and blowing reeds. I was really wanting to find my mother among magnolias & dogwoods. I passed a boy holding flowers. I noted my apology as something old and new. I think it was my brother, a younger version of the man he was, serious and stalwart at times but a charming mischievous cad at others. I was walking faster than him, but it was nice to see he was taking her flowers. In the end I found my mother.

I found my mother
On the day she gave me life
I lost her later.

For Kathryn
9.9.44 - 8.13.93