AMONG WHITE STONES

When I walk beside their white stones, these dead

seem no closer, but no farther,

the cemetery so luxuriant,

its own landscape

green with spring, the stones even whiter.

Today, my father’s a water buffalo

grazing forest glades,

stronger, more solitary than before.

Those smaller creatures

could be grandfather, grandmother.

One’s gone docile as a goat.

A small bird passes, a butterfly,

older ancestors,

their coffins underground

like bean-pods in the palm.

At the edge of town, the cemetery knoll

stands to remind. I stop a moment

on its downward slope,

unlike the grass or gravestones,

yet one thing more among them.