A friend of this family

Find me at the edge of the yard.

Just some body, nearby to that

Neat, still burning constellation.

–

Curling leaves shuffle in the wind,

Circling the well-kept stones before

Trending towards the crude border.

–

Beneath the proud, silent branches

They found a plot for aching bones,

Wrapped up in their ancestral mud.

–

Now, as then, the ground they walk on.

“A friend of this family”:

Words that injure this offbeat plot.

–

Calloused hands that worked in service

To those callous and pedantic hearts,

Kept close to bare the weight of myths.

–

So speak aloud the fading name,

Worked into the moss-wearing stone

When it still stung the hearts of men.

–

Listen to the ringing church bell,

Whose sound barely touches humble ground

Here, at the edge of the yard.