The Oldest Part Of The Cemetery Poem by Tamra Craft

She is standing alone under the street lamp,
The light reflecting off her hair,
The steam mists from her lips
She doesn’t notice that I am there.

So I pause and watch her leaning on the fence,
Lips and cheeks blushed crimson.
Crystal snowflakes glitter all around her
And light up the solitude she sings in.

Suddenly I am noticed, a slight turn of the head
Your notes disappear so fast I wonder if I only imagined it.
And those eyes, yellow as the moon glow,
Went through me with the wind swirling off the surrounding crypts.

I can no longer stare, now that I’ve been seen
I feel you tense at the approach of possible danger.
So I put up my hands in surrender, with a smile.
Now you know me, we’re no longer strangers.

What kind of person waits until dark
Then walks through a blizzard to sing to the dead?
She said nothing could be worse than never hearing music again
So someone had to come out here to sing to them.

The snowflakes were melting on your eyelashes,
I’d never seen someone glisten, you lit up like a luminary,
I held your hand for the first time that night
12 degrees below zero, in the oldest part of the cemetery.


That was the first time he saw me,
In the midst of one of my many oddities.
I’d been embarrassed by his presence,
Surprised when he hadn’t been quick to judge me.

I’d first braced myself for his attack
Though I felt protected amongst my silent audience.
But I hadn’t seen any malice in your gray eyes
As you took a place beside me against the fence.

You were only cutting through the graveyard after work,
I was the freak with this morbid intentional destination.
You would later say the lilt of my voice that night
Made my audience feather up into a standing ovation.

Always my lyricist, you would pen the words
And I would pour them out beneath the rain.
You were the gilded crow, some child’s pet
And I was a stray that you hoped you could tame.

You thought that because I was able to mimic
That I might succumb to your choice of conformity
But I would never become civilized if it meant giving up
12 degrees below zero, in the oldest part of the cemetery.