4681. TIRED ENOUGH?

TIRED ENOUGH?

(laurel hill cemetery)

The robin never makes its presence known

outside of its own polite circle of being. At

dawn, I can see them running  -  skittering

along the ground, too loose to fly and too

busy to stop. All so curious how they go as

the new day's light comes up.

-

I've tried to spike my fingers to the ground;

holding in abeyance any wants or doubts. It

all comes down to what you believe : the Winter

days (I well remember) with the ground so hard

with ice for days you'd never poke a hole. No

birds either. I believed the world was frozen dead.

-

I hesitate to say, but here it comes again. Or more

perhaps I mean to say there it all goes once more.

We are ending that cycle of gleeful joy when the

mouth can talk. I know what it's like to be cold.

-

At the cemetery in Philadelphia, high above

Fairmount Park, they have displayed  -  in the

administration/office/store  -  an ice casket from

days of old. On wheels, metal and wood, made to

last, this viewing-box casket which would be filled

with ice in the chamber below while, covered by a

lid of glass, the cold-chilled body was displayed.

-

Now, in this frivolous season of Halloween, instead

of all that, they're running costumed tours for visitors

of the cemetery grounds themselves. Ghoulish cadavers

walking by, I stand back to be watching them pass.