Mornings I walk past the first cemetery of Athens by A E Stallings

Poems

April 2003

Mornings I walk past the first cemetery of Athens

Burke

was right!

Like a widow, every day the grey Dawn comes
To the Proto Nekrotapheío, and sweeps the crumbs
Of Night from tombstones, and the marble busts.

The stone cutter in his workshop contemplates,
Chisel in hand, the blank face of clean slates.
The waitress at the café mops and dusts.

A priest sits at his newspaper and tarries
Over the headlines and obituaries.

Soon, the mourners gather there to drain
The thick black liquid to the bitter grain.
At the Office of Endings, a hunched man taps his thumbs.

Four diggers play a hand of cards to kill
A little time; two withered florists fill
The old foam wreaths with new chrysanthemums.

—A. E. Stallings

A E Stallings's latest collection of poetry is Hapax (TriQuarterly).

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