POETRY Reading: Cenotaph, by Melanie Bryant

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Needing you still, I come when I can,
this time to the labyrinth
to share this circular path.

There’s no one on the trail today
as I make my way
a shroud of fog settles in.

These trees were strangers
stark with winter their bare limbs
bearing a striking silhouette; pilgrims bent in prayer.

But now I know them well—
a weeping cherry, a slouching yew;
three graceful cedars standing tall.

Weather has erased the names from their plaques, but there remains:
In memory of; In memory of; In loving memory of
a beloved husband; now six years gone.

Listen. The cedars whisper vespers
as I make my way around the outer edge;
the bricks are slick with moss and sound beneath my feet.

When I pass again, a rotting bench where no one sits and
through the trees, a flicker of neon yellow; hulking husks—
empty school buses, lined and waiting in a vacant lot.

I tell you; it’s still as a graveyard—
the enduring quiet of this liminal place.
Alpha and Omega.

At the still point, I pause to rest;
everything slows, quiets even more, but
nothing stops; nothing ebbs my ache for you.

Still needing you, I come when I can;
again and again, back to this labyrinth.
Look. I am the yearning woman circling this path.