Tripping on Headstones
A prose poem of serendipitous discovery
Published in
Jun 16, 2022
The neglected cemetery half-hidden by tall grass, discovered
on an aimless walk along a country road that dead-ends at wood’s edge.
Discovered like a basketed foundling deposited on a door stoop,
prompting an overall reckoning with everything you thought you knew.
Headstones tilt at half-mast, wearied by unending rest,
ground down by thick-aired silence disrupted only by the occasional
crunch of tires on loose gravel, the snow plow’s scrape,
or the crying geese winging overhead.
Coming upon this graveyard and the splinters of an iron-worked enclosure
rusted to the color of deep caramel unlocks a joy so deep,
this fresh birth of possibilities too deep for language to pin down.
The geese fly overhead, unaware.
