Ashes in Light

The cemetery soars above the river.

This holy place where we settled mom’s ashes

under the bush planted 80 years’ ago

by her father after the sudden death of his wife

is washed by November light slanting earthwards.

Mom two years’ old when her mother died,

my grandmother’s body buried close

to the bush blazing with a husband’s grief,

and now the whole hillside witnesses quietly

a presence blooming from absence, family
whispers sheening aliveness in this chilly air.