A Poem

I started this poem yesterday and completed it today, so it's raw and fresh, practically still bleeding. It was inspired by a mere glimpse I had of the Lexington Cemetery as I was driving to work yesterday morning. It was sunny and there was a light foggy mist in the air, and I glanced over at the cemetery as I passed it, and the image I saw inspired the poem.

cemetery at dawn

willows lean over mossy graves
like midwives tending children.
their long, downy tendrils brush the ground
with a gentle mother’s stroke.

dawn light diffused through early morning mist
rains gold across the landscape,
and dew shimmers like crystal,
clinging to the blades of grass like perspiration.

a stone fence, lichen-covered and crumbling,
follows the undulating countryside,
rising and falling with the terrain,
shielding the prickly hedge that runs along beside it.

swallows and wrens flit from tree to tree
and the cry of a mockingbird warbles
through the still morning air.

robins and bob whites pick for food along the ground
while a pair of ruby-throated hummingbirds
dance and dart among the daffodils.

outside, the world awakens,
dead people walking,
but beauty lives in a cemetery at dawn.