A Mumble of Dust

Hardly a bee has flown
the walls of the churchyard sigh
moss on your grave screams
while the limbs of yew
still grow

Wayward spring
crows interminable
defying the teeth of winter
its curse on jaded hopes
deftly weaving pain
into barbs that blister my heart

Begging freedom from your ghost
I would gladly
dig up its skull where you lie
then suffer the bleached grin
sockets crumbling
with stench of wormy bone
and feed it to the jaws
of a snarling black June sky

But would that purge my soul--
banishing your memory
to an empty world beyond seasons
where sterile time withers
and seed tears choke in stone
when from the merest mumble of dust
as certain as death
each year's
green agonies
must flow