Selected Poems (Aiken)/God's Acre

​

GOD'S ACRE
In Memory Of. In Fondest Recollection Of.In Loving Memory Of. In FondRemembrance. Died in October. Died at Sea.Who died at sea? The name of the seaport ​Escapes her, gone, blown with the eastwind, overThe tombs and yews, into the apple orchard,Over the road, where gleams a wagon-top,And gone. The eastwind gallops up from seaBringing salt and gulls. The marsh smell, too,Strong in September; mud and reeds, the reedsRattling like bones.
        She shifts the grass-clipperFrom right to left hand, clips and clips the grass.The broken column, carefully broken, on whichThe blackbird hen is laughing—in fondest memory.Burden! Who was this Burden, to be remembered?Or Potter? The Potter rejected by the Pot."Here lies Josephus Burden, who departedThis life the fourth of August, nineteen hundred.'And He Said Come'." Josephus Burden, forty,Gross, ribald, with strong hands on which grew hair,And red ears kinked with hair, and northblue eyes,Held in one hand a hammer, in the otherA nail. He drove the nail. . . . This was enough?Or—also—did he love?
             She changes backThe clipper. The blades are dull. The grass is wetAnd gums the blades. In Loving Recollection.Four chains, heavy, hang round the vault. ."What chanceFor skeletons? The dead men rise at night,Rattle the links. "Too heavy! can't be budged . . .Try once again—together—NOW! . . . no use."They sit in moonless shadow, gently talking."Old Jones it must have been, who made those chains.I'd like to see him lift them now!" . . . The owlThat hunts in Wickham Wood comes over, mewing."An owl," says one. "Most likely," says another.They turn grey heads.
       The seawind brings a breakingBell sound among the yews and tombstones, ringingThe twisted whorls of bronze on sunlit stones.Sacred . . . memory . . . affectionate . . . O God ​What travesty is this—the blackbird soilsThe broken column; the worm at work in the skullFeasts on medulla; and the lewd thrush cracksA snailshell on the vault. He died on shipboard—Sea-burial, then, were better?
                On her kneesShe clips and clips, kneeling against the sod,Holding the world between her two knees, ponderingDownward, as if her thought, like men or apples,Fell ripely into earth. Seablue, her eyesTurn to the sea. Sea-gulls are scavengers,Cruel of face, but lovely. By the dykesThe reeds rattle, leaping in eastwind, rattlingLike bones. In Fond Remembrance Of. O God,That life is what it is, and does not change.You there in earth, and I above you kneeling.You dead, and I alive.
         She prods a plantainOf too ambitious root. That largest yew-tree,Clutching the hill—
      She rises from stiff knees,Stiffly, and treads the pebble path, that leadsDownward, to sea and town. The marsh smell comesHealthy and salt, and fills her nostrils. ReedsDance in the eastwind, rattling; warblers dartFlashing, from swaying reed to reed, and sing.

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.