ROSE PLACED

ON PLACING A ROSE ON A SON'S CEMETERY PLOT.

We placed a rose
on the plot today,
where in a week or so,
your boxed ashes will lay.

Strange looking at the grass,
the ground damp from rain,
that fell the previous day;
unreal that this

is where your final
remains will lie,
in the casket,
underground

far from the eye.
It gutted me,
looking there,
the lump in the throat,

the eyes full,
slight wind
in the hedges near by,
wanting to pour out,

get the hurt out there,
pushed off somewhere.  
A lonesome rose,
lay on the plot;

all about other stones
and crosses and statues,
names and dates,
words of loss and pain,

other have felt
sometime along the years,
days, hours, ticking quietly
from grave to grave,

flowers placed,
plants in a pot,
and soon you will
lie there in your own

marked plot,
words chiselled
against the black,
but whatever

we have worded there,
can never
bring you back,
dear son,

can never
bring you back.