Yesterday, I went to see Orville’s poker buddy, Tom Howard.
Being first a stonecutter, he’s mighty valuable to mine people.
He hardly ever cuts stone anymore, being it’s more likely
He’ll be stacking dynamite and packing blasting caps.
But it was the stone cutting I was after, hoping there’d be a mite
Of an urge left to make something instead of blowing it apart.
Orville’s grave is empty without a pretty stone to mark where he lays.
It shames me to think his kin will have to go visit an empty spot.
The kids need it, too. They want to talk to their daddy, not grass.
A stone’ll give us a place to look and sit by and think of yesterday.
His grandkids someday can see clear that he lived and where.
I owe it to Orville to show the world he left us too early and why.
Tom was drunk. Silicosis makes one need to drink, I think.
Too little breathing space troubles the body and mind. So
Instead of talking about stonecutting, we talked about apples,
And fried chicken, and our no ‘count camp doctor.
As I was about to leave, Tom pulled up out of his chair
Unsteady like and trembled down the porch steps. I
Was at the gate when he stopped me. “You’ll be needing
A pretty stone, I guess?” It wasn’t in me to ask him seeing
How he was these days, but there he was offering anyway.
How could one facing death so soon, with breath hard
To find as a clean spot in a chimney, talk of my stone need?
But he did so. “Orville was my good buddy, and I will carve
It good for him and his kids and you and all the rest of us. “
Stones and stone carving does not come cheap or easy,
I’ll pay Tom’s widow a little at a time when it come to it.
Laying up for tomorrow is not what Tom is thinking. Orville’s
Memory worries him today. Her troubles will be a burden
I can help carry, it’ll be my way to cut stone for them.
K. Bruce Florence
June 28. 2016
A narrative poem that is successful to its fine ending.
Ahhh, this is so lovely. The sense of community and connection comes through so sweetly, the way the present and future needs of two families intertwine, the way each reaches out to help with the other’s burden. The story you are weaving in these poems is beautiful and deeply human.
As we live our lives each generation offers us different gifts. The feelings that you indicate as ‘deeply human’ fit perfectly with the gifts that today I treasure most.
Your mentioning this was such a lift. Thank you.
Bruce
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