Walking a long time in the fields of the dead
I stopped where the grass
flared thickly, and leaned on a stone
to rest from the high sun.
I sat there cooling in my sweat, tracing
the worn lines, names and years
and the little graven images that harvest shadow.
The names flooded me. In the still air
they rose above the stone
like heat waves.
Points of flame winked at the tips of grasses
and Solomon entered me,
still mourning Abigail,
mourning Samuel, Jesse, John,
none of them lasted a year,
and finally Iris, wife of Solomon, also mourning,
gone but not forgotten.
Not quite yet.
All around me the small slabs sunken in the grass
and a few mansions, pale grey
and innocent.
I felt a road running beneath where I lay.