We buried you in the morning, listening
In silence to thrums from the Interstate,
Buffets of wind that slapped blouses and shirts,
Shallow stabs of the gravedigger turning
A sod hatch onto your urn. When he tipped
The last spade he murmured That’s all she wrote
And our island became archipelago.
In the distance, the immutable
mausoleum: varved tombs of pink granite.

That afternoon, readying the garden,
I sank my spade into the bin, piled
Shovelful on shovelful like foothills
In a range. Raked the hills into plains,
Sifted midden, decaying from decayed.