Along a gravel road not wide enough for two cars
I come to a resting place—
Not for me, but for those who have taken up residence
Here underneath the trees.
Two colors I see:
The pale green of vegetation
And the cold grey of granite stones sticking up haphazardly.
The same film laid across my eyes now stirs and covers the whole scene,
Draping itself over each stone, hanging from every tree.
Sheets of it form canopies overhead
And billow in the static air that is not stale at all,
But heavy with a freshness
That pushes from all sides without weighing me down.
With mosses nearly touching the ground,
The trees are weeping, not unhappily,
For loss and for living
And for the life they soak up from the earth,
Drinking in souls and whole worlds through mazes of roots.
And drinking and stretching limbs to the sun,
Their's is a bittersweet existence
Of forever growing,
Tainted with the memory of those who have given so much.

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