Not that the dead care
what day we remember,

if we touch a silent match
to history and watch

it pull against the wick,
the flame a past that wakes

again and again, a man
who can’t quite understand

where he is. Or who.
What we cannot know

we give a date, a place,
the missing part of us

we see now everywhere,
though who’s to say it’s there

until the candle makes
it so, until this smoke

signs the atmosphere.
Earth turns and so turns over

some dull and weary shovel
that cannot grieve them all.

Death too is growing old.
And strangely it’s the child

who talks to things that burn,
waiting for an answer.

It’s the trance of those
who sit motionless

in dying rooms and stare
into the candle’s star,

thinking it’s their story
now, their body’s body,

their dim sight year by year
passing through the fire.