I wonder what the dead think of the traffic on the road to Tuscarora.
Do they feel blessed by the dust of the living,
The pickups, vans, campers,
The mail truck, drillers’ rigs, occasional sedan?

I know the dead don’t think.
Nor did most choose to rest
A hundred feet from a county road.
It is my pathetic fallacy.

Comforting, though, to look east
And see the cemetery at dusk,
Wrought iron fences, marble pillars,
A mother’s grave where roses bloom in June.

And then to gaze beyond,
Between the windswept valley and heaven’s vault
A pious eye beholds eternity in the purple range.
Just don’t look at noon.

In stronger light only the dead can avoid the bare mountain,
A monumental headstone
Blasted, bulldozed, and boldly inscribed
“Here lies our beloved gold.”

Sept. 1998