Posthumously Undaunted, This Graveyard is Hopeful and Not Haunted

Autumn lost her color

leaving in her wake

another redundant season

for her children to martyr

their youthful intuition

to disencumber another holiday

from contentious competition

that denigrates their decision

to indulge the sanctity of an uncorrupted faith 

that isn’t pontificated by wholesale saints

with their fickle dogmas

turning their pain

into toyetic leverage

to exploit and demoralize

the only integrity

that mitigates

their unwarranted

and unfathomable shame

while this wayward child

meanders the labyrinths of another perpetual winter

I scrutinize the leaves

arbitrarily festooned around the house

from two children nonchalantly indifferent to the reports

that this emotion should already be dead 

posthumously undaunted, this graveyard is hopeful and not haunted