Death in May

Death in May

I wander through pools
Of leafy sunlight
Past columns and rows of anonymous tombstones
Planted by sadness and
Growing from the ground
Like the trees which shade them.
 I search for the one I know,
Unblackened by time
With letters as deep
As the chisel had carved.
I carry white yarrow and thorny blue thistle
Which I picked from the roadside
Of his death at sixteen.
 His grave still seems new to me,
Yet it is covered with grass.
I stare at the white stone,
Remembering haunting unfairness,
And wonder at his abandoned future
Now bound in dust.

 In Memory of Bert

 Marsha Salerno