Gabriel
At the wrought iron gate, I lifted my face to the waning moon. Tears scored my cheeks.
I did not stop, sleepwalking my way towards a distant weed covered place.
Neither shadow nor sound followed in my wake as I wound through the cemetery.
An effigy of an angel stood starkly alone on the edge of the grounds. Dreary square
stones marbled with grays & soft browns in no real pattern, indifferently acknowledged
who laid below.
The Angel Gabriel kept a solitary sentinel & gazed balefully upon me as I approached.
Huge wings sprung from his shoulders, feathers curled white and avenging, glittering
with frost. He marked the final resting place of some poor soul whose name was
obscured by dirt & worn away by time. Or worn away by fingers caressing the name of
the departed.
I knew who dwelt there, and it was him I’d come to visit in the still night. The Angel
Gabriel stood watch over the parts of my Gabriel returned here so long ago in a plain
wooden box. His pieces, hurriedly scraped up from the fields and part of the forest
somewhere in Vietnam, rested below. The letter carrying his proposal buried with him
along with every hope that I’d had.
by Contributing Poet SK Burnette Copyright © 2020
VWP 2020 First Published by VietnamWarPoetry.com
At the wrought iron gate, I lifted my face to the waning moon. Tears scored my cheeks.
I did not stop, sleepwalking my way towards a distant weed covered place.
Neither shadow nor sound followed in my wake as I wound through the cemetery.
An effigy of an angel stood starkly alone on the edge of the grounds. Dreary square
stones marbled with grays & soft browns in no real pattern, indifferently acknowledged
who laid below.
The Angel Gabriel kept a solitary sentinel & gazed balefully upon me as I approached.
Huge wings sprung from his shoulders, feathers curled white and avenging, glittering
with frost. He marked the final resting place of some poor soul whose name was
obscured by dirt & worn away by time. Or worn away by fingers caressing the name of
the departed.
I knew who dwelt there, and it was him I’d come to visit in the still night. The Angel
Gabriel stood watch over the parts of my Gabriel returned here so long ago in a plain
wooden box. His pieces, hurriedly scraped up from the fields and part of the forest
somewhere in Vietnam, rested below. The letter carrying his proposal buried with him
along with every hope that I’d had.
by Contributing Poet SK Burnette Copyright © 2020
VWP 2020 First Published by VietnamWarPoetry.com
Bio: S. Katherine Burnette is a state district court judge serving the Ninth Judicial District
of North Carolina (Franklin, Granville, Person, Vance and Warren counties).
She received a BA in English and Politics and a JD degree at Wake Forest University.
Most recently, her poem, A Mother’s Prayer, was published in Flying South 2019.
In January, 2019, she received her MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction, at Queens University of Charlotte.
She lives in Oxford, North Carolina with her husband, her daughter’s parakeets & a fluid number of cats.
of North Carolina (Franklin, Granville, Person, Vance and Warren counties).
She received a BA in English and Politics and a JD degree at Wake Forest University.
Most recently, her poem, A Mother’s Prayer, was published in Flying South 2019.
In January, 2019, she received her MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction, at Queens University of Charlotte.
She lives in Oxford, North Carolina with her husband, her daughter’s parakeets & a fluid number of cats.
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