My Father's Grave Poem by Sally Sandler

The grass won't grow where you were laid to rest,
though years have passed since you were buried there.
Other's graves are green, while yours is bare.
I feel this with a new ache in my chest.

The time is marked by more than year and date.
Since moss and lichen crept onto your grave
your name is blurred, like tears upon a page.
That's ample time for soil and seed to mate

and sod to grow. And yet the earth refrains
from knitting a warm counterpane of green.
Perhaps such a repose is not your need,
since blood and bone and element have changed:

Your spirit isn't resting there today.
It has no need of warmth. It's gone away.