the art of grave watching

Twenty two years ago I learned that art of grave watching.
On March 28, to be exact.  It's not easy to watch your mother
waste away and then bury the feel of her warm hand into
the coldest ground, in the year Spring came later than usual
to Ohio. 

Afterwards I watched the ground sink, as if some giant had passed through
and somehow moved the earth, throwing me off balance, time and
time again...crying out loud like a little girl with no one to kiss
my boo boos or tell me how to bring back the balance to the hole
in the ground.  To the hole in my heart.


But time makes minced meat of us all, plays tricks of memory, and steals
our attention away.  I watched  old folks choose their plots,next to this statue
or that tree, I watched procession after procession... I watched the young and
old, I heard many a volley of gun fire to a fallen soldier. 

Death never changes when it arrives, always perfectly on cue, the best stage
actor the whole wide world would rather never personally know.  No matter what
you think you know, death is never quite like that, but then again you'd need time
after time to master the art of stalking. 

A rectangle of holes is a cemetary is the square root of the end of possibility
while seasons change and make no claims.  Balloons, crosses, flags, flowers,
grass and snow come and are blown away.   Bees buzz around dandelions.
But the wind stinging your face never changes when you become an artful
dodger. 

When you bury your father, your dog and cat, your friends, and lovers you
hardly knew.