They come back to you not in dreams but
at the end of day–suddenly
in the garden, your grandmother,
casual wonder on her face, your view
of power lines and trains and hazy hills,
this worn out frontier, but at your feet,
lilies of the valley like the ones
she grew in red dirt. Knowing now
fewer living than dead, you have your
wonder too. The others come along,
a voiceless chorus, there and not there,
most of them not here for you. If they
could tell you things, they’d only be
the world, but then perhaps they’d say
the real wound comes between this and next.
These invisible others before whom
you live your invisible life behind
the apparition of you the living see.