Vale of the Cross

Once I lived in fertile country

Morning mist hung low through the valley

Curling around the fenceposts and trees like birthday ribbon

A horse kicked at a clump of muddy grass

A finch swiveled its head on tufted breast

And a dogwood flower dipped its petals toward the ground

All in communion, I suppose, with the breath of life

With the yank and tug of heartbeat and reproduction

With the pangs of hunger and the slack of sleep

With the bolt of energy that catapults through joints and muscle tissue

With the lack luster muzzle of exhausted sinew and bone

Even the death throes fed my fingertips

Informed my spirit

Rocked my frame

And so, too, did the interior crack of an egg shell

The papery unfurling of moth wings

The slide from one brittle skin to another

Wet this time, and yielding

A grave stone slept in drowsy slumber

Moss spouting green and yellow in the etched curvature of the

Mast Family name

In the granite stenciling of slender Josephine

In the marble marker for daughter, Lydia

And her shop keeping husband, Tom

Yet across the narrow hollow

In Barton’s newly ploughed field

A hammer swung and broke the suspended slumber

Sent life rippling through the tall grass

Puncturing the death echo with a shrill cry that shouted

Life is victorious! Cycles will forever repeat

Your death is my birth

And my birth is your death

And we are linked, tethered, bound

A dance of leap-frog

True and promised

And wet with dew.