Judy Loest

Leaves drift from the cemetery oaks onto late grass, Sun-singed, smelling like straw, the insides of old barns. The stone angel's prayer is uninterrupted by the sleeping Vagrant at her feet, the lone squirrel, furtive amid the litter. Someone once said my great-grandmother, on the day she died, rose from her bed where she had lain, paralyzed and mute For two years following a stroke, and dressed herself—the good Sunday dress of black crepe, cotton stockings, sensible, lace-up shoes. I imagine her coiling her long white braid in the silent house, Lying back down on top of the quilt and folding her hands, Satisfied.   I imagine her born-again daughters, brought up In that tent-revival religion, called in from kitchens and fields To stand dismayed by her bed like the sisters of Lazarus, Waiting for her to breathe, to rise again and tell them what to do. Here, no cross escapes the erosion of age, no voice breaks The silence; the only certainty in the crow's flight Or the sun's measured descent is the coming of winter. Even the angel's outstretched arms offer only a formulated Grace, her blind blessings as indiscriminate as acorns, Falling on each of us, the departed and the leaving.