Spring 2015
Before The Cemetery Needed Cleaning by Akeith Walters
My family has a milled memory,
that’s been chewed
and passed down from one mouth to another,
of when
the farm was bought,
before its grassland meadow became a family cemetery
and long before my dad’s dad did what he did with the soil,
before green sprouts became hot cotton
to be picked by great-grand mom and her batch of moody broods,
of when her parents’ parents stood in heavy boots
with arms crooked by inflexible black books
Graveyard Motif by Mikalojus Ciurlionis
their pale eyes shaded in the sunset
by red lands lifted from callus hands
outstretched in warm welcome
and of who, like their mile-away neighbors,
scratched as distant cousins in the dirt
with a bare toe waiting for something
something
to grow.
The Linnet's Wings Poetry