Hidden behind crumbling stone walls, and guarded by sentries
Of evergreen and fir, the graveyard lies untouched and protected.
There was death here, and grief, but its time has passed.

All is still now, burdened and released by the weight of time.
The oak chaplain holds his sermons for the skies,
And the ivy and the weathered stone and me.

I am an intruder, an interloper of this mass of wild things.
Inside the chapel there is a silence. The leaves have hushed their
benedictions. The birds watch, their coos muted, disproving.

No murals needed here, no paintings. Only the azure arch of the sky
and the wind whipped leaves. This is religion. This is prayer.
Sunlight dapples the knee-high grasses. Wild flowers bow their heads.

A low breeze hovers waiting and reluctantly I know I have to go.
I would have fallen on my knees, but this was not my place of worship.
I left. The oak whispered its Gospel, the grass bowing to the Word.

I stood among the graves; my heart a little heavier, my feet wishing to plant roots.
The breeze took pity, and parted the canopy. A line of sun shone onto a grave.
A butterfly alighted and basked in the light, and I read the short line of the boy's life.