By Joshua Mehigan
On the crowded hill bordering the mill,
across the shallow stream, nearer than they seem,
they wait and will be waiting.
Rain. The small smilax is the same to the fly
as the big bush of lilacs exploding nearby.
The rain may be abating.
On the quiet hill beside the droning mill,
across the dirty stream, nearer than they seem,
they wait and will be waiting.
The glass-eyed cicada drones in the linden draped like a tent
above three polished stones. Aphids swarm at the scent
of the yellow petals.
A bird comes to prod a clump of wet fur.
The ferns idiotically nod when she takes it away with her.
Something somewhere settles.
On the crowded hill bordering the mill
is our best cemetery, pretty, but not very.
All are welcome here.
Sun finds a bare teak box on the tidy green plot.
It finds lichen-crusted blocks fringed with forget-me-not.
Angels preen everywhere.
On the crowded hill bordering the mill
is our best cemetery, pretty, but not very.
All are welcome here.
Source: Poetry (January 2010)
Poet Bio
More By This Poet
Here
Nothing has changed. They have a welcome sign,
a hill with cows and a white house on top,
a mall and grocery store where people shop,
a diner where some people go to dine.
It is the same no matter where you go,
and downtown...
More Poems about Living
Meanwhile
From the Sky
When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.
Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).
A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).
Teens are writing love...
More Poems about Social Commentaries
From the Sky
When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.
Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).
A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).
Teens are writing love...
Poem with Human Intelligence
This century is younger than me.
It dresses itself
in an overlong coat of Enlightenment thinking
despite the disappearing winter.
It twirls the light-up fidget spinner
won from the carnival of oil economies.
In this century, chatbots write poems
where starlings wander from their murmuration
into the denim-thick...