Safe from
the Elements
Way out on the Island in the hands of black immaculate strangers We arrive a Fall caravan of dream cars slipping in
Way out on the Island in the hands of black immaculate strangers
We arrive a Fall caravan of dream cars slipping in
A single dark file through the pointed iron that gates this
Place of cornered family plots in the earth such as 6th & Western
Where we stop and listen to the blue wet funeral breath of November as it hustles
From the flower car informing us as if it were family that, “Due to the rain
And the building of new graves it’s extremely muddy over where Momma is so we won’t be able to watch them put Poppy in beside her.”
So the weather of ceremonies moves and the gray raincoat of a priest shepherds our grief beneath a green tent where
We are children again our quick lips being led to repeat centuries of belief that tell us these dry unmuddied prayers we know by heart
Will rise out of our sheltered breathing like the ghosts of Abel’s gifts drifting on the light
Coffin of wind that carries the souls of the dead to a heaven safe from the elements