Anniversary: 1 Line Email + Colour Photo Attachment Poem by Kevin Kiely

The woodland is close to the charnel caverns
trees are stark as if clawing
the grey-blue watercolour sky
it is written: let the dead bury the dead
the isolate visitor to a cemetery
reels in flashback
hurled at the beyond

the photograph is too final
I cannot think of you in the abyss
I still demand that you stay with me
when days crash

no one is to blame for these events responded to mutely
and undercover, above mumbling, leading us elsewhere
place is somewhere that changes little through aeons
while time spins faster as humans are seasoned

we spoke in a devalued language
the broken voices strove for unmuffled speech but
some catch in the throat denied full expression

life in opera, the script beyond the facts
seen as impossible to narrate, inability to discuss
no one word ever accurate, not much talk about it
we mourned professionally never out of character
shadowed in gloom, our laughter almost a danger
with no handbook of grief the improvisation followed
the content too closely

you who are tenants of time
from the watery womb, the watery grave
you who live
moving through a frieze of your faces
with the same eyes, know the beyond is
from here to there and you are certainly going

to your dust insubstantial, to your eyes large as planets
to your hands wider than rivers to your words whether they hear
you, they are not here: why do you seek
the living among the dead
Go on. I'll follow thee