Onion Mountain Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway, VA
where your brother’s remains
will be scattered, we light up and watch the ashes
fall into the valley. On lichen-rich
boulders we pass and inhale, while monarchs flutter
on, some, so stunned in the late afternoon
heat, only cling to the overlook
sign and fan their wings. Yet the need to fly
south overcomes the weight of sleep;
south, where in Jalisco they are thought to be
the souls of the dead.
Their return north, toward us,
is their moving on
from flesh to ether. This is where you will surrender
your brother: the point where two mountains collapse
into each other and the dead
wander by twice a year. This is where
you will always feel the awe of standing
on a wire with sky on either side
as innocent grass siphons
ash from the world and
wind pushes your face
closer to ground. The valley floods
with smoke; the sun drips down the mountain;
kudzu claims more land to its impassable bracken
and the wet wood smell of the earth
invites us in. Your brother: not yet
here but claiming it just the same,
the lichen his now, and the moss
swelling between stones we gently
unlatch to carry back home.
