These Stones Don’t Sing out Here No More

These stones don’t sing out here no more.

Their dead song’s dead,

songs don’t get sung no more

so there’s just nothin’

but a sound that don’t make no sense.

These stones don’t sing out here no more.

The bear, the poem,

the plastic flowers gone

got wind scattered and

torn from the white cross we planted.

These stones don’t sing out here no more.

A broken bike

that fell off someone’s truck,

someone movin’ to

some better place for speaking their names.

These stones don’t sing out here no more.

And so I sing,

for them and all of us,

bones above and below,

a song about the forgotten.

And I sing, sing,

tears like branding irons,

words explode on the wind,

“Rise! Fix this broken bike and ride!