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Jonathan Humphrey

Elegy with a Loud Cemetery Gate

Each year, on the anniversary of my death, I walk back to my gravestone and measure the diameter of each lichen. Time has become pale green, paper thin.

shorter days
the gravedigger
makes a right angle

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Note: “shorter days” first appeared in Wales Haiku Journal, Spring 2020.

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About the Author

Jonathan Humphrey’s work has recently appeared in Acorn, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, and The Heron’s Nest. With a fondness for whiskey and whippoorwills, he divides his time between the lights of Nashville and the woods of his native Kentucky.