Graveyard Poetry

Written at the William Blake exhibit at the Getty Museum on December 2, 2023.

Graveyard Poetry

In the middle of a museum

surrounded by the works of long dead creatives

leaving behind etchings we cannot touch

And brushstrokes we cannot get too close to

Having colored their own line work

Affecting far into a future they could not even imagine

Graveyard Poetry

to sit with death

and laugh

and cry

at the absurdity

of anything else besides the surface of this earth

What does it matter to me

to learn about the center of the planet

If the people are not being fed

cut off from the fruits of their labor

what does graveyard poetry give me

except a space to lament my hardships

before I too am relegated to feed the trees that will never know my name

of the fungi that do not care what I did in life but only know that I did it

indiscriminately eating through my flesh

until it is unrecognizable to my lack of eyes

Seven generations down do not know who I am

except maybe an inkling of my love for them

compounded together with the love of fellow ancestors that I did not even know

and converge in them