Up and around to stones,
a city of stones, standing,
lying, each with a name,
three hours’ drive,
a path of daffodils.
Stones. Names
I never heard.
When I can, I go,
sit on the bench carved
with my family name.
Two lines of boxwood,
calf-high, separate us
from the neighbors,
two footstones,
my parents’ dates.
I have nothing,
to say, as always,
nothing about my life
to this gathering
of stones.
Jonathan B. Aibel
Jonathan B. Aibel, a recovering software engineer, lives in Concord, MA, traditional homelands of the Nipmuc. His poems have been published in Barrelhouse, Chautauqua, Pangyrus, Lily Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, and elsewhere. Jonathan’s chapbook Echoes of Uruk was a semi-finalist for the Tupelo Press 2024 Snowbound Prize. His collection, “Soundtrack of Departing Clouds” is forthcoming from Lily Poetry Review Press in September, 2026.