They know what we do not.
Not that I envy the dead their knowledge.
I am grateful to be one of the ones standing here
amidst the crumble of granite and marble
while the words of Merwin and Yeats and Hafiz
weave into the quiet of the graveyard air.
I am curious, but not eager to slip out of this
human garment. What a blessing
to have a body, to look long into another human’s eyes,
to hold each other as we weep, to laugh
and to kiss and to wander arm in arm through the cemetery
on a day when the sun and rain both have their way.
What a blessing to read poems in the presence
of the dead about what it means to be alive.
Before we leave, we sing a prayer for every being—
and though I stumble on the words and fumble
the tune, and though I do not know who
might grant the prayer, I sing, I sing.