Thoughts upon an Overgrown Grave on a Hillside

If it was left to me to tend a grave

laid within some lonely cemetery

where I, perhaps, walked with my dogs and gave

passing thought to those who died before me;

I would not decorate the weathered stone

with plastic bowls nor acrylic flowers

but instead, secure that I could dig down

to several feet and pass the hours

by constructing dreams of gardens once held

to be so quaint -- an Englishman’s delight

but not of mighty trees that rip and meld

the ancient stone with earth and block the light

of Heaven from your shady six-foot plot

but plant instead violas, ere you rot.