Past the Iron Gate

The iron gates, pulled shut, a quiet click

I didn't hear, just knew. Past the bars,

the moon, a bone-white shard, so quick

to bleach the stones, to light the scars

of names and dates. A kind of peace,

that heavy, settled kind. No sound

but wind through leaves, a slow release

of day's loud chatter from the ground.

Monuments stood, stark, shadowed lines,

reaching up to nothing, or to all.

And in that quiet, where life declines,

I found a strange, compelling call

to stand, unmoving. Just to be

held by the cold, the still, the deep.

My own breath, a small, loud mystery,

while the quiet ones, they softly sleep.