Not Dead Yet

I walked daily in the huge cemetery a few blocks from my home during the Covid shutdown. It felt safe there. All the people around me were already dead.They were all also six feet away from me, though vertically not horizontally. It was a beautiful spot. I could see the sun glimmering on the lake in the distance beyond the boundary fence. No other living people were around. It was quiet. Holy. I talked out loud to my dad though his ashes weren’t buried there. I figured all the dead talked to each other. They would tell him what I said. I made friends with the crows. They’d caw twice. I’d whistle back. They’d land on tombstones near me and strut their hellos. One day I had my back to the woods, looking out toward a section of newer gravesites hoping to catch sight of a mother fox and her two young kits that I had seen a few days earlier. Suddenly I felt something. My body instinctively froze. Two deer sprinted out of the woods. One rushed by me on the left, the other on the right. They were so close I felt the wind of their passing. I was thrilled. I was humbled. I felt alive.

Cinse Bonino
2025