Digging In

Reticence in the face of it is only

Natural, and beyond that waits the full

Frisson of how the world looks without

One of its sponsors: awfully the same.

So throughout the town the widows cry,

The grass is green! The stars have hardly shone!

And underground the men contribute their

Own portion to the potage of the ground.

Now in the spring we all sit down to eat,

The schoolhouse grows a third wing, the mayor

Dedicates something solid, the dentist leaves

For the city and a younger man fills in.

In the long evenings after school the girls

And boys scramble around the edges of

A hill drawn inward like a scandaled breath,

A great depression, last year's papers' news.

They say your voice died just before the end.

You worked all summer, reworked fall and winter

As you had always worked them through, until

You couldn't for the pain, and stopped. The towns

Gather in toward the center, mine by mine,

Remembering the one lost, grown anonymous

By much repetition of loss. Still I say,

Summer is coming. We will stay a while.