I wonder how the gravestones
have worn in that cemetery
in Rising Son, behind
The Church of the Brethren.
Mom and Dad and his parents,
two sets of Reverend and Missus
Hoot. There’s cornfields and woods
and deer trails across the graves,
the granite holding minerals
the deer try to pry loose with
their tongues. I wonder if the deer
see the ghosts – the ones content
to be where they are, the others
in a disarray of time and place,
the refusal of acceptance. I have
not visited in years and worry
about remembering how to get
there. In my heart it’s just a step
away – the casket, the preacher,
the living and the dead, the drive
away, the look back. The corn
and trees and wind.
-Byron Hoot
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