Graveside Visit — I

Almost a year now. Over the months
we've returned to tend your grave,
set right the levelled tombstone,
unroll a carpet of grass that took,
grew lushly. Now summer-dry, it harbours
thistles, rabbit droppings. We clear these,
place fresh flowers, stand there briefly.
Where are you now? I imagine an ease
of understanding, any last anguishes
healed. I want to believe you fulfilled
in our memory of you. I take my mother's arm.
How the wind comes over the hill
as we walk away, hearing the sea beyond
the cypresses, the voices of summer's children.