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