What Rhymes with Time

What Rhymes with Time

At the end, a fourth line reads: A Poet - Here lies.

In this place of death where the plots

Are laid out in grids and numbered by lots

Separating those souls of wealth with their majestic tombs

From the poor ones, whose only richness was life’s dire wounds.

And there too, resting in peace a wordsmith - forever buried by whys.

Walking along the outer and inner edges of quietness

One’s pace slows at each marker that reads that life

Was lived between begin and end; there was a son and a wife;

There was Confederate soldier killed in the Battle of Tupelo  

And, there was a woman who walked this earth 153 years ago;

Setting nearby, a baby born and died on the same day - in stillness.

The Junipers stand alone in twisted forms as if in mournful wailing

While the Sallows group together, down by the old pond, sadly weeping

Seemingly reaching down for the yellow evening primrose creeping

Along the water’s greenish surface where a knot of frogs hides

And then, a thought leads to a reason why one never chides

The dead nor wails at their passing due to life’s failing.

Instead wonder - What rhymes with time?

Then gather all the words very carefully;

Place them together impeccably.

Chose each line to build the account of one.

Form the stanza that will then stand - forever done

And that ends with: a poet lies here - with no more lines.