My Darling My View 2011

Graveyard Mud

The dead around me are rising again

and I'm stuck

in the graveyard mud.

I could try to follow but

I won't be able to keep up.

My soles are fused

deep in the thick, wet dirt below.

Maybe I should just stay here.

It's quiet,

only the dark crickets

and windblown leaves remind

me my ears are indeed alive.

Maybe like the trees nearby,

I can suck up from the muck

and go dormant for a tick,

to get ready for the next loud trick.

But wait, what's that moan?

I see another one frozen

plus more

over there -

faces up

in the air.

"Do you need help?," I inquire.

And with wide eyes but narrow brows,

she shakes her head and looks away.

She would scurry if she could

but like me, her toes are trapped

in the graveyard mud.

Without even a whisper of suction,

dead quiet is she.

Being ignored

I turn to the man in the captain hat.

He stares at the sky.

"What are you doing," ask I?

His eyes flutter but he doesn't answer.

So close, I can hear him breathe,

but with his exhale there is no word.

I turn my eyes north,

letting the treetops blur,

as the diamonds twinkle

beside the moon glowing amber.

He must be lost,

filling in the missing color

in another paint-by-number dream,

I say, stealing, in silence.

Then his mutter, "I'm plotting my course.

The stars will steer me out of here."

All stalled,

I know they can't help me

anymore than I can help them.

I'm innocent but imperfect,

not lost but derailed.

Don't come back

to get me.

I won't go,

into the forest,

on Your whim.

Or worse,

be left alone

on that deserted path,

again,

waiting

for man to return,

casually.

I'm better here

in the graveyard mud

unhelping and unhelped,

tacking

in the midnight still