Fields of the Dead [Free Verse]

It's a beautiful day
  in the graveyard.

Blue skies.

Cool, but not cold.
 The ideal temperature
   to be an overdressed military man.

Do ghosts amble among the stones
   on days like these?

I imagine most of these men died
   on quite different kinds of days:

Rainy, cold, muddy days.

Muggy, buggy, malarial days.

The kind of day that just won't end,
   but to fold into a sleepless night.

How many died, 
  not from spall or Minié balls,
    but because they just didn't have the will
      to drag themselves through another day?
        from exhaustion?
        from demoralization?

How many died under beautiful blue skies
   on an idyllic autumn day?

I don't know whether 
  there're good days to die,
    and even less whether 
      there're good days to be dead.

DAILY PHOTO: Bare Tree on a Cemetery Hill

Taken in Westview Cemetery in the Autumn of 2021

DAILY PHOTO: Mausoleums, Atlanta

Taken in November of 2021 in Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta
Taken in Westview Cemetery of Atlanta, November 2019
Oakland Cemetery

Cemetery Walk [Free Verse]

And in the end,
the dead are still
and the graveyard's quiet
is not so bad.

The monuments weather;
in due time,
letters become less crisp
&
dates become debatable.

A clean read means
there maybe someone 
left to mourn.

And fresh flowers mean that someone
has tracked their melancholy 
through the place,
and the air feels heavier,
and my mind feels heavier.

And I read names:
familiar & not,
popular & not.

I read names to distract me
from thoughts of my own dead --
to avoid tracking my own melancholy
through the place.

For, you see,
I've brought no flowers.

DAILY PHOTO: Monochromes in Park Street Cemetery

Taken on December 26, 2021 in Kolkata