The almost-transparent azure
looked south to
the almost-full moon descending
from Hukun Mount peak. Morning sun ascending.
Up the hill we walked.
None of the tombstones' alone;
each has a young pine by its side, evergreen.
A grounded hush
shook every whisper, noise, and thought.
Kneeing, I’m transfixed
by something I couldn’t name, yet I could feel
the six lit incenses in my hands
were lifting our spirit up until it reached the sky.
Speciousness.
Grandfather, in that blue grace you reside.
We pressed our hands and prayed in silence
while grandmother murmured her chant.
I sensed
a thread of grief,
a recurrent of wish.
Whom is the prayer for?
Besides connection to the dead,
isn’t it also—if not more—about consolation
for the living?
Sparkling flames.
Mourning faces.
Smoke rose in wind while
embers refused to remember
the weight of fire
before I could unlearn
the weight of kinship.
The heated air
distorting a contour,
disorienting a hand.
I looked away.
When the ritual suddenly terminated,
my body left with the crowd but
my mind tarried in the graveyard.
For sentience may stay or fade in just another trance,
I drowned in the unheard dirge—
None of the tombstones' alone;
each has a young pine by its side, evergreen.
Evergreen.