Willamette National Cemetery, Feb. 2017

For my father

Pressing the stones in my hand

one for each of us

that the warmth of my living

would enter them

Waking up every morning

to the same view

mountains, sky

the needles in the Douglas

firs are singing

Mount St. Helens

luminous, unreachable

where you used to

fish with your father

Your headstone

flush with the grass

the earth too cold

to sit on for longer

than a few minutes

the cold of the ground

where you are below

entering me

One could be forgiven

for driving by

and not realizing that

this is a cemetery

the way all your

headstones are beneath

the level of the grass

how it looks like

a clearing, a rolling

pasture where

nothing is allowed

to graze