2021 NaPoWriMo April 8 Dreams from a Gravestone

Prompt:

Today, I’d like to challenge you to read a few of the poems from Edgar Lee Masters’ eminently creepy 1915 book Spoon River Anthology, and then write your own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead.

Dreams from a Gravestone

Dim light in the dark
where no memory lingers


you never knew me
this my epitaph


welcome, Stranger, be at ease
smell the roses on my grave


let sweet fragrance waft where
petallike, hovering, soaring,


arranged in spirals, forever
parallel, ascending, we touch in


an instant’s communion
all that we know.


Like moth wings we unfold
trembling before a light


that dispels questions
illumines answers


distills dewdrops into diamonds
molds feathers into gold-tipped quills


welds us together
sanctifies us all


called you here, Stranger,
witness and wonder


savor this instant’s
fragrant uncertainty.