It's Still Life

Seems that While We’re Alive

Our holidays include the dead.
Visiting parents, gone.
Family members, gone.
Dutiful. We pay respects.
We bring flowers that wilt
and die as if mimicking us.
We’re highly compostable.

My in-laws are resting beside
a white-washed stucco church
built in the 14th century.
They’re buried next to each other,
box and laurel privets dividing
them from next door’s bones.
Even in death, we are territorial.

And then there’s my father.
His ashes were spilled like milk
into an icy mountain stream.
My sister kept a few grams
of his ashes; made him into
a necklace. A few years later,
that necklace joined my mum’s
ashes behind a marble slab.

I’ve been blessed to know love.
I’ve been blessed to be loved.

for dVerse Poets, an Ekphrastic form Poem based on an image by Mary Frances.

©️ Misky 2019