My daughter and I hold hands
walking
on the way to school
along the muddy gravel road
strewn with layer upon layer
today's dead
piled on yesterday's
piled on the day-before-yesterday's
dead leaves.
A pastiche.
A heavily shellacked collage.
She chats merrily,
unaware of the morbid turn
my thoughts have taken.
This road is built on the bodies of the dead, I think.
Just like the famous road through Siberia
where the dead bodies of the laboring prisoners
- thousands upon thousands of people -
were just packed in amongst the layers
of rocks necessary to build a road
so that fools with fancy motorcycles
and video cameras can prove their ability
to travel to the edge of the continent.
She is swinging my arm so enthusiastically
I have no choice but to listen.
Ogres and gremlins, um-hmm. Hiding in these woods. Yes.
(Maybe we are not thinking so differently after all....)
I would not miss this fragile moment:
eau de decomposing leaf,
crisp air, wool sweater and this person,
the embodiment of life.
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