There’s a twinkle in the grass. 

The child within me, that stays to her post 

no matter how many years go by

Sees them as stars. 

The brightest stars she’s ever known

In the middle of the day

Sparkling on earth instead of in the sky. 

She’s the first stop on the train of thought. 

And for the briefest of moments, the rest of me believes her. 

What else could look so enchanted? 

Only objects of the heavenly sort. 

Cut and polished granite in the harsh afternoon sun. 

Death from a distance. It’s not so ugly. 

You can’t see the names. Or the flowers. 

Or the lambs that decorate those gone too soon. 

Well, they were all gone too soon. 

You can’t see mourning from the air. 

Grief becomes meaningless at thirty thousand feet. 

I imagine every glint as a soul. 

Blindingly bright, the force of life without its body. 

Tied to this world by what they left behind. 

The headstone is a docking point, I think. 

The ever-sailing ship of eternity glides past. 

It asks for passengers in this port of the other side. 

I wonder if the dead hate goodbye 

Just as much as the living.