[The passports of the tombstones]
       

                The passports of the tombstones
                have all been dated, stamped,

                abandoned. The rain shivers through. The sky goes clear.

                                Flowers, if there are flowers,
                                                      fresh-cut as the names they lie on,
they last a week or two
                                                before they join the clippings of the morning.

                                The stone angels have all gone blind,
                and those who talk to them speak of regret, reunion, something
                in the news.
                                                Those whose hearts are stones that listen.

When I was a boy, I played alone
                with matches in the garden,

                                                and the little souls of the ants were at my mercy.
                                                I was more afraid than I knew

                of solitude and worse. Its absence. I was cruel.

                And then more sweetly miserable.

                I was powerless
                              to stop. I thought. Better to say I was a stranger
                                              to my power. I was the abandoned field
                in a pastoral.

                                                                        And I stared transfixed into the fire.

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Copyright © 2020 Bruce Bond All rights reserved
from The Calling
Parlor Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission