All there is.



After the mass at Saint Gertrude's
the procession winds up
a narrow pall of a hill
where years seethe and sleep
and the grave-pit yawns.
We are gathered together.

Nothing but pallid air
and hands sailing a casket
across swept autumn lawns.
Our mouths
calmer than hymns.

The listing plinths
a crooked rank and file;
a sloping shoulder
down to the dusk valley,
a pause that blooms
as large as stone.
We stand here
and this is all there is.

Mute shovel,
dumb row of earth.

A pleat of hands,
a crease of knees.

Above, flocks wheel & return
alarmless
a great swim of sky
dimming swiftly
a canal filling
its arc of sallow blue
to the brim with dark.

Breath pulls in slow like an oar.





December 2001 © Jesse B. Castaldi