James Mclain Poet Free verse

The Dead Know Nothing

The dead know nothing of the moon’s cold grace,
Nor how it spills like milk upon the sea;
They do not ache for touch, nor dream of faces lost in each word.

Their hands are folded like unanswered prayers,
Their lips forget the shape of your name,
And time—soft tyrant—has no rule on them.

I envy them their silence, cruel, dark and deep,
Yet fear the peace that knows no pulse, no sound of the sweat we leave in the ground. 
The roses on their graves still blush with heat,
While those hearts below lie colder than stone.

If love could raise them, I would tear the veil—
But what if they no longer cared to rise?
What if the dead have learned what was said —
That hope is only hunger within the tail end,
And memory, a serpent eating light?

I think they rest because they’ve ceased to dream,
And that, perhaps, is mercy’s final work of art.
And thus comes the flame.

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