"how beautiful is the silence of growing things
in a place full of even deader things?
the soft roots of innocent herbs
poke through the rotten flesh
and curl around the dirty bones
of forgotten ancestors
that deserved better than this." And
all of this underneath the rubber soles
of a young girl's Sunday shoes,
scuffed white surrounding curled baby toes.
Her world watches as she jumps from rock to rock,
lining the winding road as it leads out.
And she laughs at herself,
dark curls bouncing with her. Again she wonders
"how blind are the sunken eyes
of those who stopped looking? the flies buzz
and run their tiny feet all over
the stiff, unfeeling organs
of ancient lovers from a different land, different time.
if they could see now, they'd just see rotting wood,
the unsightly view we condemn all our expired kind to-
maybe that's why they stopped looking, closed their eyes."
She smiles, and the old breeze
chills her crooked teeth, stirs her Sunday dress,
black and white against her bony knees.
And she tells herself-
"It is just his body that lingers,
falling victim to natural defamation;
his soul floats on to a truer place,
full of grander memories."
For she cannot afford to think in any other way.