Apr 11 | Necropolis (poem)

sound is fuzzed out

when you walk in

stones lie heavy to remind you of things left unsaid

 

lips unkissed, friends unmade

family unfarewelled

lives unlived (too many)

 

a necropolis is somehow more of a thin place

than a soft field

a simple stone

those are an ellipse

an erased photograph

a qualified nothingness

there was never any substance

we are all in-between

whispers between beaded blades:

You think you are here

but you are not.

 

a necropolis is fixed

it waits

we are among the dead

as at a great feast

they remain unabsorbed and yet

disappear all the same

it is somehow

less safe

you remain, solid as they

and wait for some great groaning

as earth labours to burst them forth

become different, perhaps dreadful

babes bathed in blood

wailing with painful newness

longing for old air and wet warmth

unaccustomed to uncovering

unable to return

 

we joke about one fellow

“francis b. born”

underneath, we decide, it should say

“francis b. dead”

i laugh but it’s a knowing laughter

memento mori

remember, o thou man

we are

dust.

 

–Clarity

Note: I wrote this on my honeymoon after visiting Lafayette Cemetery #1 in New Orleans. It’s a thin place. -C