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This appears in May 2008 v184 issue (saddle-stitched) of cc&d magazine. Click the issue number or the cover to see that issue online.						This writing also appears in the published 100 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book “This was the Time” cc&d v184 May 2008, reprinted in 2019! (the 2019 reprinting of the May 2008, v184 issue, that also contains 3 bonus 2008 live poetry chapbooks!) Order this as a 6"x9" paperback book:

this writing is in the collection book Charred Remnants (PDF file) download: only $9.95 (b&w pgs): paperback book $18.95 (b&w pgs):hardcover book $32.95 (color pgs): paperback book $74.93 (color pgs): hardcover book $87.95

This writing appears in the published 100 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book “This was the Time” cc&d v184 May 2008, reprinted in 2019! (the 2019 reprinting of the May 2008, v184 issue, also containing 3 bonus 2008 live poetry chapbooks!) Order this as a 6"x9" paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book Among the Debris the cc&d July-Dec. 2019 issues & chapbooks collection book		get the 494 page July-Dec. 2019 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Among The Debris

Ken Fisher

High-stepping cautiously through the tall weeds
Overwhelming an Inuit graveyard
We wend our way silently, over flagstones
That once formed a path into mourning

But now, rampant growth just obscures the old trail

From the church parking-lot, dirt and gravel,
As we tread single-file, respectfully quiet
Beneath the huge yews standing vigil

Picket slats long ago blasted by storm

Into pathetic submission
Lie, strewn and scattered, among the debris
Of last Fall’s descent into Winter

We enter a graveyard unlike countless others

I’ve visited spanning the years
While searching the head-stones for humor’s defiance
And stories deserving a witness

But here, we have furring-strips slapped into crosses,

And granite’s nowhere to be seen,
Just picket fences, some painted and tended,
Enclosing each burial space

Though most struggle hopelessly, losing support

In their battle against gravity,
Leaning upon low, weathered, gray shacks
A leprechaun couldn’t crawl into

Which frame out the resting place of every body

Laid out in a timeless repose
Beneath the protection of warped, battered boards
Now popping nails loose with each season

If you took a false step, your foot would cave through

The boards buried six months in drifts
While whispering faintly of lives long forgotten
Which once braved the chill of Alaska

Perhaps the soft murmuring only craves witness

Perhaps it protests lack of privacy
But suddenly uncomfortable, questioning intrusion
On sacred land now swallowed up by Nature

I pick my way despondently back through the weeds

In hope I’ve not offended with my presence
Where such dilapidation seems an insult
To even one as casual toward ritual as I

I know it doesn’t matter to their God or to their souls

To gaze down on the weeds and broken slats becoming earth
So why then does it feel a gross indignity?
Why then does it matter to my soul?

As we try to put two hundred miles behind us,

In a chill that nags my conscience
While we tail the midnight sun.

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