1. Found Hand-Painted on a Tin Flue Cover
Ribbon of black crepe
draped on a door knob
like broken strings
hanging from a loom
with the words: Weep not.
What do I need of this world?
2. S. P. Dinsmoor Describes His Tomb
I have made myself a coffin with a glass lid.
By the door of my grave house
I have set a cement angel and a stone jug.
When I see the hose coming down, the lid will fly open
and I will sail out into the air like a locust.
If I am called above, the angel will help me on my way.
If I have to go below, I will grab my jug
and fill it with water somewhere on the road down.
Meantime, every day I pray–O Lord
teach me that I am but earth,
a hollow vessel of clay,
only a wisp of breath against my emptiness.
3.
They have yet to figure out
the name of the church
two men driving in Barkley Lake
around Cain’s Mill a few years ago
found the whole steeple of
cross and all
half-buried in the mud shallows.
The holy land is everywhere. —Black Elk
Watch where the branches of the willows bend
See where the waters of the rivers tend
Graves in the rock, cradles in the sand
Every land is the holy land.
Here was the battle to the bitter end
Here’s where the enemy killed the friend
Blood on the rock, tears on the sand
Every land is the holy land.
Willow by the water bending in the wind
Bent till it’s broken and it cannot stand
Listen to the word the messengers send
Life from the living rock, death in the sand
Every land is the holy land.
“Every Land” by Ursula K. Le Guin
I enjoyed this.
Yes, it is a fine poem.