Weeping ash in a churchyard
A century keeping vigil over
those who need no vigilance, concealing
the sweeping shadows, the day’s declension,
the tolling year’s irrecoverable
loss from Easter through a bitter Friday,
one leafless limb yearning sunwards with no
expectation, one arm consoling the stones –
their names uninscribed, loving memories
invalidated – slowly curling down
to the patient, all-embracing earth.
I slip in step with the dying and dead
in sad processions, like tides which reach no
further than the edge and turn away, and,
for the short, wordy, retrospective path,
my forehead smeared with penitential ash.
