Two Poems, Remembering Barnardsville Days, Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina
A ruined one-room church appears,
a cemetery plot weed-hidden behind this
once sentinel house long remote to men,
as present as God. My own presence is bound
to his who stands confounded now as three,
one above grave, one within it, and me
in between, one eye upon him, the other
upon sagging dirt where bones and a
ragged shirt share an unexpected
moment of veils confused in sunlight's
disarray of leaves, wood, of stone and
shadows frozen there, not breathing
for us all in unstoried astonishment. Here horseflies feast.
Upon weathered stones
are only creases for once were
names, dates, even God's Word,
chiseled by a now unknown hand,
an impression only, one among many,
reduced to no plot but that of Providence
left to surmise swatting at Eucharistic
flies proving only flesh and only blood,
a flood of questions eventually exhaled,
and exhaling still, waiting beside
a white rock with wings,
ignoring fires,