RUNNER UP
On a Day’s Pause from the Rigors of Metastases We Walk Through Laurel Hill Cemetery, You and I Poem by Sean Webb
We have returned to see the lion, his human-like fingers of stone gripping stone where he sits above the river in the rain, high above us on a massive pedestal. Fall colors are muted now but still beautiful against the gray. The river is rising. Bright wet leaves stick to everything. Our current distance between the dead can be measured in the peculiar family names no longer heard of— the Herknesses, the Spancs and Frinks, all folded into other nomenclatures, other families persisting. Colossal mausoleums anchor the familiar names— Elkins, Widener, Lippincott. The die is cast so early for some, there seems little variance, even over time. Out over the river I see no evidence of living things. What I think of living, movement over time. The river is moving faster and becoming muddier as it rises. Between headstones, we notice a flash of color— a red fox with sprays of white on his chest and tail loping over wet grass between stones and monuments. He notices us but has little concern. Our distance is insurmountable and we do not matter. Like everything he is dead and not dead, living and not living as time only seems to move. The still air in the empty spaces inside the mausoleums do not support anything living. The illusion of death persists. If it is an illusion to the dead, it is quite real to the living, and not real, of course. I try to will my mind to images of those underground in various states of decay but I cannot. That reality is unknowable. Biocentrism postulates that existence cannot suddenly become nonexistence. (The pallor of death has left you and yet it is with us.) Last night, we watched a fire on a large screen television. A beautiful fire at the base of snowy mountains. Wind whipped flames higher and we enjoyed it at a cellular level,
Sean Webb says, “ I have received many honors for my work, including fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Utah Arts Council. Recent awards include the Passages North Neutrino Prize and I was the winner of the Gemini Magazine Poetry Open. My recent chapbooks include “The Constant Parades” and “What Cannot Stay Small Forever.” My work has appeared in many publications including Prairie Schooner, North American Review, The Quarterly, Seattle Review, West Branch, and Schuylkill Valley Journal.”
PS SPRING 2021
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