Time and Passing

Over the graves

Over the graves

Over the graves

Of many men 

            many men

Time has trod

Past moss has grown

            damp and green

            brown and soft

From dead things buried

            not man

            but from the buried cow

Rain has washed the tombstones clean

            erasing recorded time

Beneath the ground

The damp earth slowly

With the passage of worms

            broods

Bravely foreboding protean protrusion

That the roots of plants know so well

            their white tendrils feeling

                        softly  

                                    patiently

To move down over

            and under the stone

A profusion of growth fed

            while the black earth stirs

                        and listens

What is stationary is past

            by the avian over

stilled on the summer day

The only hymnal

Played by heat waves rising

The only mass is what the meadowlark will sing 

God will change all the colors to green

          That’s as far as he got that day

That’s as far as he’s gone

 

Asta Dido