THE BONE ORCHARD

By Dorit D'Scarlett (Dark Poets Prize III Winner)

Beneath the crooked yew, they bloom—

not roses, not lilies, but something else,

pale as teeth in a widow’s smile,

delicate as the breath before a lie.

Fingers curl from the soil, petal-thin,

reaching, remembering, restless.

Roots whisper secrets the earth won’t keep,

bones shift like wind-touched chimes.

The river runs black where they drank last light,

the house still hums with echoes of names,

but time is a patient undertaker—

it folds grief into ivy, sorrow into stone.

And we, the living, walk among them,

mistaking their silence for absence,

but they are here, just beneath—

listening, waiting, growing.

For every name is a seed,

and every grave a garden.

#darkpoetsprize