Sijo

[TranquillityBase]

 I like 'witness' but later it occurred to me that it might give away the twist too early.  Part of what makes it work(for me) is the ambiguity between people vs the headstones until the last line.  At least that is my objective.   thoughts?  Maybe 'apart' is the better choice.

In the end I found 'the' too generic to let the reader know this is a gravesite of loved ones.

Thinking and reading the poem this morning, with the above remarks in mind, I came up with:

Shoulders curved under a growing burden, made ghost
by the murk of falling snow, headstones stand apart, row upon row.
Eyes water red in the cold, asking too much of their dead.

I don't know if this disturbs your syllable counts, but just throwing it out there.