Where the Dead Lie SleepingWhere the dead lie sleeping,
I go to find peace. On a pink bicycle, I often rode Around sleepy cemetery circuits, Trailing my mother, Sparkling streamers jammed into each Handlebar hole. When I was twelve, I would run there, Some days to meet my friend, But mostly to sit alone in the gazebo, staring down the wind and the babies’ gravestones, Wondering how they felt to only ever have been babies. It’s like from youth I knew Beauty hides inside sadness, That grief is not goodness But still circular or comforting. In its depth It settles sandbags In the cradle of the stomach Grounding all ten toes Into the squish of earth. Now-- Far from the cemetery Of my youth Lives another around the corner Where I go walking with my niece. Always alone Except (of course) those who lie sleeping. It feels odd to bring such potential To a place meant for people Who have said all they could. Mostly we come to smell the cherry blossoms In a natural and nourishing way. We meet Frank Ellis, King of the Gypsies, and his beloved wife. And the Vietnamese man whose name I wish I could pronounce But who left his picture (just in case) wanting to be remembered as more than just a name. And the babies are there too But I try not to think of them Because that’s the kind of tragedy That does not hold beauty At its precipice But falls flat like a pancake More of a shock than a sadness. Somehow it is a lesson As if to say Even here we are all just humans. Please do not pretend any other way. |