Sometimes Knowing Is Not Enough

Leaves lie scattered
about the yard, covering
the resilient purple pansies

and dying mums. Yards and yards
of streets and avenues
wear the brilliance of their dying.

Beneath their fading colors,
you, and the many yous time
has taken, lie sealed and unmoving,

bodies and faces wearing shades
the restorative artist chose
for you, not quite your own but as close

as modern art allows. I feel this gnawing
inclination to go rake them off (the leaves,
the artists whims), to expose bare ground,

but I can't sense why--

to see you more clearly, to touch
the earth that touches the box
which touches the cloth which cradles

your body? I can't make sense
because there is no sense. Let
the dead lie where they lie, says

some small and getting smaller
voice inside of me. Think. How much
lovelier the earth is in this time

of dying than at any other time
of the year. No rakes will comb
that mound of browning green,

but hands may shove the reds
and yellows aside in reckless
abandon, making way for some other

colors to find a home above you,
those hands wanting to scratch and dig
until the nails are blackened, until

the heart, restless and uneasy, appeases
itself, knowing what the hands do makes
no sense, and what the heart does, less.