Chatting with the Dead

Cemetery patrolmen hide unseen
their rusting John Deere
camouflaged by yew and ivy
waiting to remind the forgetful
that watering cans go by the tap
ordered and numbered
like the dead

Friends laugh
but I could never live nearby
too many feelings here
to pounce and trap
then overpower my senses.
As long as I can see the gate
half open like that
I'll be OK,
I'm sure.

Charles Happenfield Wilson
born Calcutta 1871, died aged 23,
calls me from a row
where stones all lean their different ways.
I stop to pass the time and wonder
but there are no clues
He won't say
why he was buried here
so young
Perhaps that long journey by sea
from the hub of empire proved his last.
Now it's ten hours on the plane
but I had no heart to tell.

Blue and white favors of a soccer team
wave gaily in the wind
where someone's Dad
their best supporter rests.
They never won a thing while he lived
but now they sit ten points clear
top of the league with one hand on the trophy.
Good news at last.

It's colder and I'm getting lost
before the gate
a maze of grey tarmac paths
cracks crammed with green moss
where crows peck salad
from the teeth of dead smiles
Paths to everywhere but the exit
and too many fallen soldiers
standing firmly in my way.

Outside, the flower stall
disappeared years ago
but a notice warns me
the Dangerous Headstone Audit
will soon take place.
How many graves will they take
this time?
Always at night and in secret
lest the living take offense
and where do they go
those white markers of the unremembered
making way for us
all waiting here
without escape