I don’t remember the birds
or how many veils of sunlight
wrapped through the leaves
I remember the stone wall
crumbled and sudden as if
those who stacked it had been
somehow removed or displaced
I remember the gate or the sigh
of a hinge turning in I can’t
recall stepping in bewildered
vaults surged up from the ground
some half-earthed and some
denned with scat and hair
some broken some whole
as the ribs of ships lay
The headstones tilt and lunge
each the cusp of some other
upheaval angled such as to someday
fall and I remember the angels
carved in and all of one remorse
all of one name abandoned
to the vandal the root the thick
forest floor blindly in this silent
surround which of itself gives way
to the sapling the trillium the fern
all things lush below the dim
canopy of our hushed green lives
Image: Phyllis DeMario – “Dorsey Graveyard” – Ellicott City, MD – 24 Apr 2013
Sweet and Bitter Greens 
Gosh, who are you! “fall and I remember the angels
carved in and all of one remorse”! I don’t know what to say, but again, gosh!
Aw, thank you. This is a memory from childhood, stumbling into an abandoned graveyard in the woods. It is a haunting place. But, I came to find out today that it is being cleared of the overgrowth and restored to a proper reverence.
D