Pumpkin Bottom Revisited

Pumpkin Bottom Revisited

Out here
in the graveyard.
All the placidity
a sea of platitudes.

Millionaires and paupers
are equal
in the undiscovered country.

We all
end up here
in the city of the dead.

A place
for the dead.
A place
where they
spend eternity.

To fit a thousand myths
or more
of your choosing.

On the top of the hill
here
in Pumpkin Bottom.

I can see for miles
to either
east
west
or south.

Like a flash frame montage
I'm back
in 1995 again.

Another bitter Summer
the images are raw.
Still fresh
25 years later.

I remind myself
why I have
an irrational hatred
of certain
trivial things.

But enough of that for now
today
is Independence Day.

I know
unlike apparently
anyone else alive
that this is the spot.

The vantage point
to view the
sparkling fireworks
from several festivals.

I watch the sparkling
fireworks
and festivities
from a social distance

From eight miles high
here
at the graveyard
on
Pumpkin Bottom Hill.

-Will Dockery (7-27-20)