Headstones

photo: Churchyard on Lindisfarne



Headstones

Forgotten people leave headstones in my life.
Engravings of joy and sorrow
mark their passage
in crevasses of remembrance.
Some bring summer sunshafts
into dismal days;
friends who come, open and in welcome,
bringing encouragement in unwrapped parcels.
Some bring curtains of darkness
to ambush bright moments;
enemies in disguise and deception,
cloaked hurt and harm.
There are legions of headstones
in the graveyard of the past
their inscriptions in bright relief
or weathered to insignificance.
Each short-circuited
stab of history, my story,
carries its gift or tax in sudden hand.
Each holds yesterday, informs today,
releases or holds hostage the day to come.