cemetery walking

I fear my poetry muscles are very flabby indeed, but I couldn't resist LL's invitation to write about a moment where I experienced slowing.

Cemetery walking,
I come to chase after autumn hues:
Bursts of crimson and gold
Flaming forth from tree branches
That will soon be stripped
Of their fiery filigree;
Falling amber and emerald
That make a carpet,
Downy and bejeweled for my feet.

This is not death, I think
But transition:
The movement from one way of being alive
To another.
This thought will comfort me
In the coming months of freezing dark;
I will patch together a warm cloak from these hues
And the memory of them.

I happen upon her innocently,
Unsuspecting.

I stand and wait.
Feet rooted into the patch of grass
Over the bones and dust she guards,
I stare:
Hoping for revelation
To come blazing from the stony angel-eyes
That stand watch over the grave underneath.

Unmoving
She tells me nothing,
So I click the camera
And click again.
A few more.

Part, lips!
Tell me your secret!
I beg
From silent mouth,
From likewise stony eyes.

I watch.
I wait.

Riveted she remains, and unflinching:
Listening in silence for the voice of God,
And waiting for the resurrection
Of the dead.