What is Buried at Thresholds

Third of four poems for October on a dark and ghostly theme.

I wept for ninety days,

until birds fell 

from their branches and

cattle dropped dead

where they stood in fields.

I did not sleep for ninety days,

until I had gathered 

every scattered bone 

and every word of every woe.

At night,

a father presents his amulets,

a mother bangs pots,

ushers in the magpie men.

And I tear at my flesh, 

and tell them the darkness

of secrets, of what is buried

at thresholds, they misunderstand 

with their holy water, 

and anointing me with oil,

speak the names of angels

backwards and forwards - 

the scripture 

of incant and recant. 

Painting is from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Courvoisier_-_View_of_Pere-Lachaise_Cemetery_from_the_Gothic_Chapel_(cropped).jpg