Brooklyn Cemetery

The aerial view portrays the old cemetery ground, not

As one of lone bereavements,

But a quaint, obedient conglomerate –

            A collective sorrow, made pale with time. 

The sun on the opposite sky is wide awake,

            At this peak of day; its light

Making dials out of tomb stones

            On blades of grass that have grown, so slowly,

Over jaws of the jagged burial plots –

            Like a striking beard more thickened and greened

With the slant of Summer rain. 

It looks to me, through the plane’s window, not as a place

            Of rest or even lingering melancholy, but an arena

For playful afterlife;

            One trim shadow holding the heels

Of another, swapping stories, comparing artifacts –

            Finding, by surprise, each other’s common histories.