. . .
. . . . Ode to a Slate Headstone

What was your life like,
you, bones, in the ground below
the broken gray headstone before me?

Were you kind or cruel?
Did you know yourself?
Did you run from demons
or surrender to the fear, the fight, the flame?

How much beauty
did your heart take in?
Was your life so hard
that the shapes of stars
and the turning hues of leaves
escaped you, running for their lives?

Did you love, and were you loved,
or were you eaten alive
by hate, regret, resentment
of your world?
Did you give or take,
just take, receiving nothing?

Had you power, or
were you powerless,
and which was worse?

And are you part, now, of a
universal breath,
or did you merely disappear
into the terrible, ice-borne wind
of soulless, never-ending death?
. . . . . . . . . . . .--May Terry, 2007
. . .