Where Bracken and Buckwheat Blow ...a Sonnet

Beside us the bracken and buckwheat blow

We gather; as dirge of maple and birch

Ruffles the soft, solemn hush of the crowd

In a still graveyard next to a white church

Asleep in Jesus and Amazing Grace

Trembling with sorrow, our words and tears blend

This body has reached its last resting place

We must return to life’s journey again

Back to the learning, the groaning of toil

Back to the earning of Treasure or spoil

***

Out in the distance a katydid trills

Here we commit our loved one to the earth

Cradled forever by rivers and hills

A marble monument its single proof

Of beloved lips that smiled, laughed and kissed

Of work-worn hands that labored long and hard

Of eyes that twinkled in blue tenderness

Recalled as we gather in this graveyard

Where only the shell is covered with sod

Memories dwell in our hearts; soul with God

***

…now we turn, from the tear-stained mound of dirt

We are not yet summoned by He who ordains

Our numbered moments of heart-ache and hurt

We must return to life’s passion and pain

Of buckwheat and bracken; of sun-scorched halls

To plant and to harvest its tare-stricken clime

Someday it will be our name that He calls

Closing our eyes on this vapor of Time

The tide of mankind surges as a whole

Until God separates body from soul

© Janet Martin