Two Poems

The Stone Composures

The whiteness of the headstones
comes to me as warmth. I hesitate
but here I am surrounded by these mute stones,
stunned into a hundred islands whose foglines
reach between weeds. I can hear
the turn of a plow through ground fog
from the neighbouring farm. I can hear a low
beat inside the birch leaves whose branches,
etched black-and-silver, hold back
the humid twilight. If I come
to find they are all gone, I continue on
as a moment of landmass, a switch of breath –
the sheerest souvenir. Standing here,
I am aware of the air filling with unseen
rays. How should I attend
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