I was looking
for the two
black men,
who’d fought
in the Revolutionary War,
buried under
slate slabs
carved with curly-
haired cherubs.
Most of the tablets
had no names
and were broken.
Schoolboys
played ball
on the little mounds
that still looked fresh.
The sun was hard white,
and a chestnut tree
shaded my eyes.
A dense, ball-shaped,
branchy shrub,
with lacy florets,
seemed to represent
the puzzlement of dying
in order to live,
or the paradox
of lying in the tomb
of one’s master,
whose dust was
as white as yours.