Dying to Know Who Will ShowDeath rituals and customs in the Arkansas Delta are set in stone. When I was a child, I attended an occasional funeral, and I often accompanied my parents when they went to visitations. The visitations took place the evening before a funeral when people gathered to pay their respects and to view the body of the deceased. The event was usually held in a funeral home, but at times it took place in a private home.
When I did attend a visitation, I was amazed at the floral displays. Large metal scr
The Portrait of a ChampionWe were young, they say.
We have died; remember us.~ Archibald MacLeish
Sitting in the bleachers we used to count her laps
as she “wrote the Australian crawl” into record books.
Her elegant stroke modeled text-book form,
elbows bent high, outlining a mountain peak,
while determined hands paddled water towards her feet,
strong like the motor on a hydroplane in a protected harbor,
or when sailing wings caught the wind
on a sunny day in the Paradise Bay.
She was always swimming forward.
Blessed w
To a Further BlossomingAlong a narrow uneven trail in a clearing
above a school, I heard in a creak a human cry.
The tree was dead. A dead oak tree with a hollow
halfway up, places where the rough gray bark
looked eaten away, other places raw, lichen pale, spongy
and bare. With broken limbs drawn upward.
From a distance in the late light, it looked like
a jaggedly splayed, coal-colored bouquet
against the sky. A haunted, haunting thing.
But up close, its pulp felt soft as velvet in my hand.
It wasn’t so much a cry as
SanctuaryIndian grass is mingled
among the Bermuda, not yet ready to mow.
Round bales from an early cutting
stand in the southern corner of the pasture
where I am walking,
seeking remnants of the old house.
In my memory
the ruins had lain just past
a stand of blackjacks and bois d’arcs
across a little creek on the edge of childhood.
Moving parallel
to the abandoned railroad track,
west of the field
I see
the bright orange flame of Indian Paintbrush
splitting coyote bones
r
Dying to Know Who Will ShowDeath rituals and customs in the Arkansas Delta are set in stone. When I was a child, I attended an occasional funeral, and I often accompanied my parents when they went to visitations. The visitations took place the evening before a funeral when people gathered to pay their respects and to view the body of the deceased. The event was usually held in a funeral home, but at times it took place in a private home.
When I did attend a visitation, I was amazed at the floral displays. Large metal scr
The Portrait of a ChampionWe were young, they say.
We have died; remember us.~ Archibald MacLeish
Sitting in the bleachers we used to count her laps
as she “wrote the Australian crawl” into record books.
Her elegant stroke modeled text-book form,
elbows bent high, outlining a mountain peak,
while determined hands paddled water towards her feet,
strong like the motor on a hydroplane in a protected harbor,
or when sailing wings caught the wind
on a sunny day in the Paradise Bay.
She was always swimming forward.
Blessed w
To a Further BlossomingAlong a narrow uneven trail in a clearing
above a school, I heard in a creak a human cry.
The tree was dead. A dead oak tree with a hollow
halfway up, places where the rough gray bark
looked eaten away, other places raw, lichen pale, spongy
and bare. With broken limbs drawn upward.
From a distance in the late light, it looked like
a jaggedly splayed, coal-colored bouquet
against the sky. A haunted, haunting thing.
But up close, its pulp felt soft as velvet in my hand.
It wasn’t so much a cry as
SanctuaryIndian grass is mingled
among the Bermuda, not yet ready to mow.
Round bales from an early cutting
stand in the southern corner of the pasture
where I am walking,
seeking remnants of the old house.
In my memory
the ruins had lain just past
a stand of blackjacks and bois d’arcs
across a little creek on the edge of childhood.
Moving parallel
to the abandoned railroad track,
west of the field
I see
the bright orange flame of Indian Paintbrush
splitting coyote bones
r
Dying to Know Who Will ShowDeath rituals and customs in the Arkansas Delta are set in stone. When I was a child, I attended an occasional funeral, and I often accompanied my parents when they went to visitations. The visitations took place the evening before a funeral when people gathered to pay their respects and to view the body of the deceased. The event was usually held in a funeral home, but at times it took place in a private home.
When I did attend a visitation, I was amazed at the floral displays. Large metal scr
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