Let the state highway cleave cold, stubbled fields

so that both empty lanes extend like grace,

and let prim churches in the ratio

of seven Baptist to each Methodist

appear with rigid regularity

close to the road, their dead even closer,

with small, flat rusting markers on most graves,

then drive another twenty minutes more

to see the trees defer to furrowed soil

except for this one rise where pines aspire

to reach where hawks and turkey vultures rule,

and let those who have nursed the dirt behold

the blush and burgundies of morning clouds

that dare not stifle early rays of dawn

from blanketing the hillside’s eastern slope

where mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles wait

as gravestones chalice that unearthly light.