On his beautiful grave
someone has placed plastic flowers
I would not take away, though I know
he hated counterfeit.
On his beautiful grave
a chipmunk has dug a hole year the headstone
with an escape hatch at the foot,
which would have made him chuckle.
On his beautiful grave
I can sit and see the town of Doon, Iowa,
a sprawling hand print along the Rock River.
I can hear the farmer’s son hollering at the cows.
Near his beautiful grave
the new June corn stalks rise twelve inches,
and on the day he was buried
the September corn standing row after row
made a wall seven feet tall
around the pine box and the prairie flowers
whose seeds will liv longer than his bones.
Next to his beautiful grave
no woman will lie, not even my mother,
though when he was dying
he spoke of a woman we couldn’t see
who came to sleep beside him until the end.
Near his beautiful grave
my husband wanders with a camera
taking photos of the stones,
and out two sons lie in the car reading
with their feet dangling out the back window,
waiting patiently for me to stop gazing
at his beautiful grave.
Now my death comes toward me,
solid and certain as his headstone.
Yet here, on his beautiful grave, fo a moment,
I have lost my fear of death.