Heart Stone

The cemetery cat asleep on the warm headstone
careless of the worthy mason’s curfew

ignores the adjustment to place
my fingernails caught in the fierce scree of memory

I try to place the language of a pebble
from when we slept huddled at Roaring Meg
waking laughing snoring back at snowflakes

carried by a pilgrim’s wanderlust
its granule beat beyond a relic’s blessing

there is a continent between us
they are strangers, your family, after our time

even now do they know about your toe rings?
those keepsakes of the Kush market

a lonely chorus hum slips through forearm hair
the release of doves falters songs escape
an evening bids by light too short

this redeemed concession out of was
now a stranger’s lilt toward recovery

a best suit shrouds over like a shag of wet ravens
graphite slow motion by crease endowed

you wanted to be buried a Viking
but here we are among the kindling
still held apart between oft trodden roads

Shall I introduce this parting remnant
fill in the song lines of your mystery
leave it to flicker by the sun translated?

A poem just up at  Black Poppy Review

https://blackpoppyreview.blogspot.com/2020/03/heart-stone-by-james-walton.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blackpoppyreview+%28Black+Poppy+Review%29

Kneeling man embracing standing woman by Gustav Vigeland