Poem: Graveyard

 

Graveyard

 

i slink into an ignorable place,

where all-White names

cling to history on buoys of gray stone.

such poor choices for lifting hearts,

gnawed by lichen, tottering and heavy,

barely able to sneer

from eroded, chiselled pores.

 

why is an extinct passenger pigeon 

perched over a 153-year-old child?

no breeze to soothe as i kneel 

and peer at the final figment

of someone whose son had impregnated

my great grandmother’s aunt.

 

after a tussle with manners 

i both laugh and cry

at these slabs of sanctimony

which pontificate from the tongue of a chisel.

i leap to run, larkful in my swoops,

until the marble hovels and stern crosses give way

to balsam steeples.   

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7/20/24 edits ... I struggle onward  ... till I die, and get graved myself, or just burned

11/29/23 ... lots  of edits, hopefully improved this poor poem

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180111084953.htm

The passenger pigeon wasn't in trouble prior to Europeans arrival in North America. Nothing suggests that the species was struggling in any way.

Perhaps this isn't that surprising. In the 19th century passenger pigeons were so numerous that there were contests to shoot as many of them as possible during a certain period of time. In one competition, the winner had shot 30 000 birds.