For the dead.

Saint Brigid’s 

Gravestones, nameless 
after a century of weather—

shadows stream 
narrow-limbed 

over uneven ground. 
Summer’s first murmur: 

gnats and honeysuckle
cloud the cemetery’s 

night-green edge—
green throbbing 

and slowly tumbling in. 
I sit

with the stones
until silence 

abides silence.
Mercy. 

How we’re all always turning 
back into earth. 

From Decades: Selected Poems, available now.