Post by Ron Wallace (Scotshawk) on May 27, 2009 11:58:23 GMT -5
Hartshorne, Oklahoma (April 17th 1917)
Your bones
lie beneath a cemetery wind
where I stand on rain-wet grass
growing over your stoneless grave,
and I listen…
listen for the dark echoes
drifting across nine decades;
rifle fire
that summoned you
to dwell in the ocre tinge of photographs.
Grandfather
I have seen,
locked in sepia-toned shades of grey,
those Wallace eyes,
watching from another age.
I am the son of your son,
and I come to find you
not lying in hard ground
nor buried in arcane pages,
but living in my muscle and blood
your heart moving my legs.
Your eyes
looking out from that old photograph
were my father’s eyes
now they are mine
and will someday be my son’s
peering from beneath his brim
pulled low to study dark clouds rolling
over our land
where he stands listening for echoes.
Your bones
lie beneath a cemetery wind
where I stand on rain-wet grass
growing over your stoneless grave,
and I listen…
listen for the dark echoes
drifting across nine decades;
rifle fire
that summoned you
to dwell in the ocre tinge of photographs.
Grandfather
I have seen,
locked in sepia-toned shades of grey,
those Wallace eyes,
watching from another age.
I am the son of your son,
and I come to find you
not lying in hard ground
nor buried in arcane pages,
but living in my muscle and blood
your heart moving my legs.
Your eyes
looking out from that old photograph
were my father’s eyes
now they are mine
and will someday be my son’s
peering from beneath his brim
pulled low to study dark clouds rolling
over our land
where he stands listening for echoes.
