The Iron Age Double Burial Mound at Kivik, Sweden

carry another stone  
inside the mounded circumference  
of this marriage, where  
if once vandalized, it now  
    rests
 
the weight of void, & absence  
where of course love had arced out   
   in life
 
convection of the local routine,  
an elegy thrown together en masse  
in brief transcendence of the horizon line  
    before a return to earth
 
ego walking, slowly  
around the mound's edge,  
soon discarded with the ritual butts  
sucked to the color of  
    a faded sun
 
nothing personal from that tiny time  
    survives,  
   except us, til  
that also disappeared into  
a campground or  
the way home buried in a map  
beyond fear of death
 
rules mastered  
of strange languages & slangs for 'peace'  
translated down from their reign, thus:  
'convince us  
   there will be tomorrow  
       enough for all,  
teach us  
   the meaning of stone  
       beyond pain'
 
was it ever settled was it  
between them a 'pillaged relationship',  
attempts at intimacy  
over there behind the cafe, in bedrooms,  
hovels, huts, &  
which is more impassioned,  
    electricity or fire?
 
the body's iniquities  
accepted from intercourse  
with wave action & glaciers  
from way back when,  
like a boy & the girl next door
 
each piled-up boulder a memory, trolls  
can squeeze under,  
but only beings spread out to the sky  
could've heard the other
 
'they wanted a way to remember'  
spontaneously gathering again, again  
         happiness  
      itself they were  
   happiness itself    
 
 & died happy 
 
& mark, all the happy
 
& spread happy throughout
 
& now will never miss their happy
 
& happy it could happen
 
& happy the years passed, theirs,
 
& happy the tears


Dave Shortt