Ceremony
Never to decide. Leave strings to float.
Sky, tree line against 8 p.m. red, it is July yet white snow on the peaks.
Don’t expect notes and memories to explain anything, they’re the detritus calendars provide.
When was the child born, when did the gray-and-white kitten appear in the yard?
Resembling tipis that rot to the ground years hence. Or in winter or the child’s next birthday.
Certain things must continue but in different hues.
Mother be forgotten, buffalo meat cut to strips to dry. The sun. Never knowing when rain will return.
Grandfather (who will soon be gone) only asks the riddle, never tells the answer. Oh, la.
Art Information
"Berkshire Hills" © Carl Bowlby; used by permission.
Grace Marie Grafton’s book Jester was published in 2013 by Hip Pocket Press. She is the author of six collections of poetry. Her poems won first prize in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition (National League of American Pen Women, San Francisco) and the annual Bellingham Review contest, and have received an Honorable Mention in Anderbo and Sycamore Review contests. Her work has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Grafton’s poems have recently appeared in Fifth Wednesday, Cortland Review, The Offending Adam, Canary, CA Quarterly, Sin Fronteras, Ambush Review, PoetryMagazine.com, and others.
