Taking The Bus Past The Graveyard Poem by Sheila Knowles

She was sitting at the bus stop
dressed in turn of the century black
waiting for the bus
that takes the leftovers
to visit the recently departed

I see them every week
their cotton bags
filled with rusty garden tools
their skin pulled back
in grimaces
of exhausted martyrdom
The Death Brigade
doing their duty
with religious desperation

and I’ve often wondered
if they ever feel
an ounce of love
for the tedious
thankless job
of tending graves

But she stood out
from the musty throng

She’d dressed up
for the occasion
her delicate liver-spotted fingers
were wrapped
in black lace gloves

beneath her pillbox hat
there was dignity
and sorrow
in each lock of silver hair

and I wished
she wasn’t waiting
for that bus
or at least
that someone else would notice
that her tools were
in the words
she couldn’t speak
and the sadness
she was hiding

and the garden
she’d be tending
was in bloom