Cemetery

by Roderick Hochstetler

Upon this dead hill
where our dead rest still
is desire.
And searching
for something
among the stones
is a ghost alone
of mist and melting snow
gesturing with the breeze
under blackened old trees
at want.
And is it dead
or death at all here
with names and years
and this haunting
lurk
in the memorial yard
that moves and breathes,
or is it life
living in its own shadow
and never gone
and always dawn
after dark.
And walking past
the graveyard,
there is no end
of us.
And even graves
that no one sees,
and even bodies
not interred
seem to sigh a single word
and it is not
death.

Roderick Hochstetler wishes he had more time to read. He is studying English at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Photography by Kenneth Godoy