OUR CENOTAPH
Today I remember the pieces, deep
reds and blues of my mother’s Imari
glued to Mary Hadley’s farm scenes –
a fractured clash of bright and pale
that fit somehow to make a landscape
I can abide, but better on the borders
of the garden. With each glazed shard,
we till and plant our grief, a glint of color
for tomorrow’s tomatoes and squash.
I want to plant something in her
grand twenty-gallon vase that’s only
held umbrellas on its carved oak stand
half-century in a dark and dusty corner.
I want to bring it back to life, make it
useful in a pagan coup d’état that sings
with art fading in the weather, as we
all do in time, a song that celebrates
owning nothing with this flesh.
A place she can visit for coffee
and a cigarette, make suggestions
while we work the earth.
cen⋅o⋅taph [sen-uh-taf, -tahf] – noun: a sepulchral monument erected in memory of a deceased person whose body is buried elsewhere. Origin: 1595–1605; < L cenotaphium < Gk kenotáphion, equiv. to kenó(s) empty + -taphion (táph(os) tomb + -ion dim. suffix)