visiting the graveyard

  

 

Visiting the Graveyard

by Mary Oliver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I think of death

it is a bright enough city

and every year more faces there

are familiar

but not a single one

notices me,

though I long for it,

and when they talk together,

which they do

very quietly,

it's in an unknowable language—

I can catch the tone

but understand not a single word—

and when I open my eyes

there's the mysterious field, the beautiful trees.

There are the stones.

— Mary Oliver,

from "Red Bird"