The Most Famous Cemetery in the World
Jan 2 2008


In the City of Lights
in the Père-Lachaise
the luminaries of France are interred.
Where acolytes and devotees
leave offerings.
Flowers, of course.
And brushes still wet with paint.
And 1st editions, open to a page
where passages are underlined in fierce black strokes
and the margins filled with notes
— like chicken-scratch,
accusing this, rebutting that;
and the odd triumphant stab
of vindication.

On the weathered blocks of stone
sharp edges have been smoothed by polluted rain
and the names smudged grey by smoke;
Citroens idling on narrow lanes,
a million Gitanes exhaled.
And admirers have etched graffiti;
words of solidarity and praise
crudely engraved.
So dead Communists
and bohemian poets
and rock stars destroyed by excess,
all lie in their crowded rows
like a book-case of treasured tomes
— dog-eared, and full of marginalia.

Where the living go seeking answers
from heroes who speak from the grave;
and the secrets of the long-departed
stay buried with their remains.