Butler Pennsylvania 40
Butler Woman
It called for a headstone,
raw earth covered with snow
that had fallen
since we had buried her
two lonesome months before.
But first the earth must settle,
he said, who was chiseling
her name now in stone.
The cemetery was just over
from where she watched
right up to the last, wheelchair-erect,
from her dining room window,
letting her eye skim westwards
out across that stony ridge
jagged by obelisks
to the skies beyond —
her open book
she sat reading from
and meditating on.
From where her gravestone lies
you can see at times
flashes of light
from off the windowpane
where she sat
and near it that valiant old oak
still standing watch
as if she were living there yet.
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Butler Woman
It called for a headstone,
raw earth covered with snow
that had fallen
since we had buried her
two lonesome months before.
But first the earth must settle,
he said, who was chiseling
her name now in stone.
The cemetery was just over
from where she watched
right up to the last, wheelchair-erect,
from her dining room window,
letting her eye skim westwards
out across that stony ridge
jagged by obelisks
to the skies beyond —
her open book
she sat reading from
and meditating on.
From where her gravestone lies
you can see at times
flashes of light
from off the windowpane
where she sat
and near it that valiant old oak
still standing watch
as if she were living there yet.
Next Home
Comment
