Wild Flowers

by Edward Byrne

Following a route that rounds the lake, I slow down and stop
at an entrance to a country cemetery—unmarked, almost hidden

by overgrowth, but suddenly appearing beside this road.
Amid weeds and first colors of wild flowers, I see those squares

of grave stones, barely imprinted with faint names and dates,
histories of two centuries ago, placed in irregular rows nobody

else has walked for quite a while. On one slab, someone's
nine-year-old (no older than my own son), a boy who'd drowned

along the shore across the way, where a blue surface now lies
stippled white in sunlight, as bright as this spring's new blooms.