All Saints Day Poem by Birgit Bunzel Linder

We prepare for the cemetery when
dew has turned to rain to frost to hail.
At season’s infancy, they say.
Jittery trees line our cobbled streets,
standing bare and reaching high.
The roots hold on to the hardened soil,
afraid to lose their ground.

In the morning we bring out our sleep,
wrapped in knit sweaters.
We exhale our souls on the way to school;
winter makes us silent.
In the evening jinni lurk at every corner,
until we confine them to red candles on the graves.

We polish the marble with our gloves,
wander by soldiers’ crosses that look
forlorn and tired, candles
flickering like orphans.
We wait in solemn silence and count
the flames that have died so far.

Tonight the dead come alive.
But you and I die a little further.
Grown-ups groom shifty memories.
The dead don't mind the gossip
that sweeps from grave to grave.

Every year we search for better secrets.
Although we know their stories.
Tonight, we all are saints, they say.
While they whisper revelations,
we tug on their coats and ask,
“When does death begin? ”
“When the heart begins to beat
dutifully, ” mother says.

On the way home, our breath hangs
in the air like budding ghosts.
The cobble stones put demons in our way.
Black trees climb out of their leaves,
whip unseen ghosts and ghouls.
Our hearts beat, beat, beat. Beat wildly.

And so we go to sleep in peace,
knowing that death is far off and preoccupied
with saints and sinners
from the past and the present.