STONE UPON STONE.

A MAN GOES TO HIS FORMER LOVER'S GRAVE.

Baruch laid stone
upon stone
on the grave.

Still warm;
dry weather for weeks.

Deganya put down
a stone gently,
placed it just so,
next to his.

They stood looking
at the stones
on the grave.

Flowers stood erect
in a vase, pink,
white and red.

Hard to believe
she's dead,
Baruch said.

Deganya stood
with her thin hands
at her sides.

Always
she survived things,
always the joke
of immortality,
Deganya said.

Mortality reminds us
who and what we are,
Baruch said,
kneeling down
arranging the stones.

That last time she knew,
Deganya said,
no joke that time.

She put her hands
together prayer-like.

Baruch gazed sideways
at the girl.

We had
our good times
together;
bad times, too.

She never
spoke of it,
Deganya said,
looking
at the flowers.

You made her happy
for years.

Baruch said nothing.

The stones were
as they should be now.

The girl's mother
had been a love of his.

Time had separated them;
the rows too frequent
at the end to repair.

Deganya looked at him
then at the sky,
sniffed the fragrant air.