I visit my their graves after harvest is done
each year the orphan
stands in an August heated wind
braced against the knowledge
that we are all born alone
and so….

I speak to them
but all I can acknowledge
is that they are gone
Then I pretend that I had not
said anything at all

I board a plane
that carries me farther away each year
the orphan looks down at the receding landscape
as his tears fall from the wings
they rain down on the parched flora
of souls

beneath your blood coursing
silent words well up
from the moments
you were born
and the moments that you will die
what is this
which lays between