No one came to me with questions and, really, who would ask a stone?

Yet I could see their eyes roll white like cows with swollen udders,

crying for sure hands as they came and went, seeking any clue

to the mystery of why I was moved and he was gone.

If they had caught their breath and listened, I would have told them that

since the first third day, when the waters were gathered into one place

and the dry land appeared, I have felt the roll and tumble of creation

and like no other I know the thrum of life and its absence’ hush.

I’d have said that as sentry to a grave I expected no more than silence,

for the bones that enter stay still ‘til another’s are brought and those

removed, yet in the quiet hours, I’d say, when night grew thin

and purpled the dawn on the second third day,

I felt my cold back warm, the air stir, and in that bleak hollow behind me

a heart thumped, gaining rhythm as slack lungs shuddered and filled.

What could I do, I’d ask, but roll away? It was never my place

to hold the living among the dead.

© Dana Hughes  4.27.17