Leaning Into Changes - At My Father's Decaying Grave Poem by Warren Falcon

for the Major, yet another


Descending the hill in unplanned rehearsal,
what has become a destined association,
our mutual confession is invisibly drawn.

A ruined one-room church appears,
a cemetery plot weed-hidden behind
thisonce sentinel house long remote
to men, as present as God. My own

presence is bound to his who stands
confounded now as three, one above
grave, one within it, and me in between,
one eye upon him, the other upon
sagging dirt where bones and a ragged
shirt share an unexpected moment of
veils confused in sunlight's disarray of
leaves, wood, of stone and shadows
frozen there, not breathing for us all
in unstoried astonishment.

Here horseflies feast.
Upon weathered stones
are only creases for once
were names, dates, even
God's Word, chiseled by
a now unknown hand, an
impression only, one among
many, reduced to no plot
but that of Providence left
to surmise swatting at Eucharistic
flies proving only flesh and
only blood, a flood of questions
eventually exhaled and
exhaling still, waiting beside
a white rock with wings,
ignoring fires,

leaning into changes.