By: Art Trustin Burros
January 27, 2005

It is so hard to see the future when you are digging your own grave
The earth scratches against the steel of the shovel
The earth is tossed aside into a pile,
Arms push the shovel into new earth
And the foot pushes the steel in deeper,
All in one preconditioned motion

The local children stop by to ponder the event
They stand on the matted down grass,
Pushing one another,
Giggling,
Standing, questionably, at the edge of the grave
When a child asks, “Who is the grave for?”
You poke the tip of the shovel into the ground in front of you
And you answer, “Some poor bloke. Better him than me.”
And another child grabs a handful of dirt from the pile,
Holds his hand out stiffly over the grave,
Turns his fist and lets the dirt drop into the hole
You don’t complain
You stand with the rest of the children
And watch the dirt sprinkle down to the bottom

When the hole is finished and you feel your age,
You go home to take your pills and rest
The pills are good,
Prescription drugs are always the best,
You can feel them working
The worms, they entered when you were too young to remember
Something like a headache rots in your skull,
But there is no pain, only lack of something,
Something you don’t understand,
Something the prescription signing doctor may not understand,
A fear,
A backflow,
An unstoppable idea,
Some hope
The pills change the world
They change the person’s perception of the world
They change the person
Tomorrow is another day
And maybe that child’s tiny hand will fill that grave

When I feel the world moving against me under my feet,
I see the sheep choosing their paths,
And I am unable to make a decision
I stand with my shovel at the beginning,
Watching the children study their innocence
And burying mine
There is nobody I can follow home
There are no lonely soul-mates cooking breakfast for me
There are only the sheep,
All grown up,
Following their chosen paths over the horizon
I can only stand behind my shovel,
Both hands on top of the wooden handle,
My eyes staring over a fence and across a green field,
While I stand in a graveyard,
Questioning my silence