In a Slate Belt Cemetery
When night covers this graveyard
like a shroud and the moon is autumn silver
you sometimes see deer sleeping
up against gravestones, their long, delicate
yet muscular bodies lying like lovers
with the eternally resting. Such strange,
beautiful peace to see them pressed against
chiseled names of the deceased. Some
might have been hunters who spent Novembers
tracking the very animals who now snuggle
like family pets next to the engraved years
of their lives. Maybe deer lie close and
absolve these men for arrows and bullets
aimed at their breed on fall forest mornings.
Maybe bucks, does, and fawns understand,
as we all should understand, the need
to forgive and let go before sunrise calls
us to continue our rapidly, fleeting lives.