For Great Aunt Cathy

Her graveyard was the most beautiful

misty breath cupping cheeks, the promise

of rain.

Gray husks intruded upon verdancy

full-bosomed willows, guardians of an unfinished task

flowers clipped and laid to rest while roots lie, entangled

arms and legs decomposed, the souls nowhere in sight.

The cello played such melancholy the birdsong couldn’t help but cry

singing as he sang to her until

the rain came down.

An unstoppered drizzle, the sky’s mercy

cleansed the earth for the missing sister

drenched the words of the humble priest

enveloped all in a hush amidst its greatest roar.

Hovered there, pouring and disposing, without thunder.

The torrent left 

as a tiny spate—to other skies, unnoticed 

but for its memory.

And in its wake daughters’ fistfulls of dirt, seventy years crumbling like envy, like the rust on the crest

of the last lone 

cardinal.