I have visited the graveyard, but not the grave. The grave happened later, as it so often does, after death come down the way. Long after the last cold kiss, and the bequeathed ashes, and the many vivid dreamlike reckonings. It was a lovely, small hillside plot, in the shade of a well tended grove of poplars. Kin and distant cousins and the blood that bonded but never took. The times attended, the deeds all done. A small parcel and a modest stone, the earth again receives. The journey over and over, over amid worm and root.
I don’t know if I’ll ever make it to the grave again. There’s a lot of ground to consecrate and the hoofs don’t hold up like they used to. The goat has gone fallow for a long unnamed season and managed to wake up late. The trick of tending the days ahead all but lost in this glut of all tomorrows, a need to redistribute the adoration from the symbols to the soil, a blessing that lends a shoulder to the burdens. The magic moves from mouth to mouth, the first breath and the eternal breathing, each one fuel and bloom. The fire awaiting the blessing of sentience.
I won’t linger long in this latest eternity. I won’t take up the mantle without it offered, and this time around I must have missed the ring. The yard you paced for ages, the work you took from the earth and air, the press of hands and mind are a disarray though your ghost still walks the property. I hold onto old debts and lost obligations, taking the brunt I may. I tend the other end of destiny, the scars and the sharp parts, the boxes and the bones. I sink my husk into each season, turn with the moon and sun, the depths always reaching out. The road rises up from the roots.