HORSMAN, PASS BY

JERRY MIRSKIN

My son, nine years old, informs us
that the big stones in the cemetery
are for the important people.
And I wonder what pantry moth
told him that, and begin a lecture
on importance and wealth
and vanity, with a coda about knowing
what you know, and an encore
about our Zen fathers who wrote poems
and floated them downstream.
Just this morning, in our backyard, I sat
with my tea and papers on a large stone bench
the previous owner left behind—
not a monolith, or motion to a god, or slant of light,
--just a simple station in the sun, an afterthought.
And like an afterthought,
I could feel in the stone the cool from last night
leaving, and the warm vapors of the sun
being stored like acceptance in the stone's grey ton.
We don't need to be told that life is good
when it is.
Though we tend to forget.
We erect monuments of remembrance.
Afterthoughts.
They are all the same monument
and bear the same name.

Cold in winter.
Warm in summer.