by Amy Worley
 |
| Nick Anderson |
Here lie dead
a star gazer
a trailblazer
a bodhisattva
2 artists with tiny Mona Lisas
stamped on their still small spirts
not yet emerged.
Here lie dead
two seasoned, storied, spirit guides,
who were delicately, precisely, so, so lightly,
tending gossamer spirits.
Here lie dead
would-be mothers &
would-be fathers &
all the glorious would-be children &
all the would-be made inside them.
Here lie dead
among the bullets & bone fragments
unwritten books & unbuilt churches
un-prayed prayers in the
dark, wet cave of adolescence.
Here lie dead
the African-descended
the Mexican-descended
the whatever mix descended
double helixes no longer spiraling.
Among the dead
slivering over bloody bodies &
and rising up to stare us in our unseeing eyes
is the serpent of our failure.
Not an either/or failure but a slimy sludge
of yes/and foundering and non-doing,
with a forked tongue &
voluminous, sweet-smelling venom.
Here lie dead
in this community graveyard
a virologist
an ecologist
a drummer
a plumber
a shattered grandmother whose shards pierce like shrapnel.
Here lie dead
what we didn’t do to serve an unwell young man &
what we didn’t do to protect the hatching of the future.
Here lie dead
we all
knowing of good & evil
and choosing to hide behind the tall, dark tree
rather than stand naked in the dappled light of truth.
Amy Worley is a poet and nonfiction writer living in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, two boys, and her literary dog, Leroy. She is also an attorney and management consultant. She has a BA in English Literature and a Juris Doctorate. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared in various online and hardcopy publications.
