Poetry

Reading Poetry to the Dead

​

I once saw a witch

reading poetry in a graveyard. 

She struck me as odd,

dressed in plum,

a rose against the gray

that hugged the sky.

 

I almost missed her

with her legs

tucked neatly beneath her, 

resting back against a headstone

as she read the work aloud. 

 

I would have wandered

on my way

had I not heard Walt Whitman

and stopped to listen

to his wisdom in the witch’s

cool, purple, voice.

I could hear the sound of rain-

drops bouncing off of stone in her tone.

 

When she paused I dared to wonder,

“Why do you read aloud

when there is no one here to listen?”

“There is always someone listening,”

she said

as if she’d been prepared for the question.

I gestured about the empty rows of stone

silence. A challenge she accepted gracefully.

 

“Take the crows, for instance,” she nodded

towards the feathered thing, perched

a few plots away.

“I’m sure they tire of the crying

after a while. 

I like to give them new words to learn.” 

 

I chuckled at the thought but

the beast did seem intent. Knowing, 

blue, gaze trained on the witch. It waited

for her to begin again. 

 

“And there’s always the mourners,” 

she added. “Many of them

can’t help themselves. They come

and twiddle their thumbs,

unsure of what to say to their loved ones. 

So I read them a passage or two.”

 

“Does it help?” I asked.

She sighed.

“It seems to do the trick. 

Poetry untangles 

knots inside of us,

we don’t always know are there.”

 

“I guess, if nothing else,” I offered,

“you can always read to the dead.”

 She smiled a warm, red smile,

“Now you’re getting it.”

I felt pleased, like a schoolboy,

rewarded with a sweet

for guessing the right answer.

I’m sure I would have blushed

if I were able. 

 

I imagined the spirits,

with their translucent ears

listening

as strings of words filled their heads,

lining the insides like cotton. 

A wasted comfort on a corpse, but

so be it.

 

I sensed I’d learned 

all I needed when the witch 

raised her book to read again.

I turned and took the wind

back to my own plot of dirt

beside the crypt of the old poet. 

 

He nodded as I lay

against my headstone and spoke

for the first time in a century

as far as I knew.

 

“She’s right, you know,”

The poet professed,

Gazing down the hill in her direction.

“Nothing brings the dead joy

quite like poetry.

 

And there is always someone listening.”