Goodbye Note by Jarod K. Anderson

the soft creatures building castles, a five-dollar doll wilting on a headstone

Goodbye Note

by Jarod K. Anderson¹

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Someone hung wind chimes in our cemetery
and a wren house
and mirrored mylar pinwheels.

Someone left a plastic horse on a grave.
An empty can of PBR.
School photos in a ziplock bag.

When they’re warped by rain,
colors washed out by sun,
they’re no less beautiful becoming
the place where ground takes back.

It’s like coral in some shallow gulf,
the soft creatures building castles,
a five-dollar doll wilting on a headstone,
love-litter accreting meaning.

A grandchild’s note shifting into soil
was written just for Nana,
but all of us, living and dead,

where Earth welcomes home our blood,
will receive that message, unread,
long after the words are moss and mud.

1. First published in The Sun