Poem a day for 8 April 2014: Cemetery

Cemetery

I like the gravity of a cemetery
sentinel heads protect the secrets of skeletons
from cool closet to sun-baked earth
and I imagine and mourn their stories
returned to dust:
the illicit affair
the stillborn child
intimacies with a trusted priest
(him safely dead too)
and I worry about how names and years disappear
as stone markers crumble over time
and yet red gum salvaged
from the bed of the Murray
has yielded perfectly formed
one-thousand-year-old fossilised tales.

Comments

6 responses to “Poem a day for 8 April 2014: Cemetery”

  1. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    Hmm, safely dead …

  2. Mike Avatar

    I like this Jen. Right from the opening line – the play on ‘gravity’ and ‘cemetery’.

  3. Ray Avatar
    Ray

    Feels like the mental universe has travelled backward from inner sanctum to cemetery to 1000-year-old…Or is it travelling forward??? Lovely piece.

  4. Russ Avatar
    Russ

    Yep, exactly the same comment as Mike

  5. Jen Avatar

    Thank you, Mike and Russ!

  6. Jen Avatar

    Hahaha Ray, you’re right there in my head with me, in knots! 😉

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