Outside the summer-dead cemetery, a crew chips the trimmed branches of pine. Some mornings
it’s the fragrance of a cut lawn that make you breathe deeper. Others, the lawnmower’s two-
stroke fumes. Today, despite the noise, you could think forest and be in deep shade, sap forming
on cones overhead. The soft earth of needles seem to never decay but weave like a sleeping bag
underfoot. Stones and underbrush: sparse enough to walk without worry. Somewhere, water
slicks granite. You must understand: this is all the beauty there may ever be.