In Cemetery Pere Lachaise - Rebecca del Rio

[Larry Robinson]

In Cemetery Pere Lachaise 

I want to write about the way, in this City 
of the Dead, a who's who from
Napoleonic heirs to their victims, the famed
and infamous, the important and
self-important share this crumbling hillside
village, made magnificent by time and weather.

But all I see is rain and a
British ex-pat killing time near the not-yet
occupied tomb of a still-living photographer. 
A stranger with all the time a free and aging
man could want and no money, he passes
time in the luxury of this place where
no one is bothered by money and what it
cannot heal anymore. This stranger

without motive guides us in
the labyrinth of stones and crypts, gives 
due attention to the known and unknown,
who like us, wander in the cemetery
of life, bumping shoulders
with loss and living. 

	- Rebecca del Rio