toward this place

-toward this place-

If we begin here

travel in the one
defined direction

the destination
leading to what is known

where the dead mingle

with the living

where the old women tender
the old men in pedestrian

silence —

where the young men,
our fathers among them,

cultivate a space reserved for their sons —

where the young women,
our mothers among them,

teach their daughters by daily

execution, 

by fundamental deduction,

by parental extraction —

where we prosecute
the elements of living
in an open forum,

accessible and predictable,
from where we've begun,
where we ought to begin —

the connector of residence,
from the mouth of attendance,
to signal the stories out from their corridors
that we, left living, might speak of them.