Poem: Decoration Day

Decoration Day

There is a gentling terrain

Of tussocked bluestem parchment brown

Straw that compliments a bloom

Turning the new leaves glaucous

Color schemed by negligence

Sallow below, a bloodless husk calicoed into cloth

And lichen over stone and marbled bone

Verdigris, vanilla…moss viridian

Will here be advertised by name

An ancestor the visitor can’t guess

And hopes to speak to

At her last address

Speak to of what

To a dead one who knows the story’s end

So little else

In lonely faith to each day’s sundown

Rising to knead the bread

To burn the fires again

Over the hill, over the hill, to the valley far away

Yonder, dear, and yonder still, lies the blessed, blessed place

Sleeper be as yeast when summoned by the trumpet’s call

Speak to of what

We living have leisure now

We eyeball thirty things at once

Some negligence again

The visitor had hoped

No, nothing never could be done

Cut wildflowers and lay them down

Decoration Day

You Have An Enemy

(2018, Stephanie Foster)