koimeterion
driving past the burn today
I finally name what it evokes in me –
cemetery:
the structures low to the ground
the winding streets now going nowhere
the arboretum of cultivated trees
the metal shapes like iron railings
delineating a family plot
so many memories interred
in each rectangular basement-crypt
nearly everything gone to ashes already
from the Greek word for sleeping place
where souls once breathed quiet midnight dreams
(or tossed fitfully, as it may be)
now there’s only the eerie absence of an old life gone
