“What Sleeps Will Not Sleep Forever” by Tresha Haefner (_poetry_)

Death changes a landscape. The gourds
Red as the past. I left the house on
like a light. Under the ground
another cosmos is still
expanding. The onions form like small moons.
Now my grandmothers gather
in the house of the wind.
Their silk blouses billow into clouds.
Not everything that dies
sleeps forever inside the dark farmland.
Crocuses turn the ground green and white.
The dead roll over and listen
to the worms turning the moon on and off.
I think of the boy, buried under the weight
of this town, turning and turning
my mother’s marigolds yellow.
The rain twisting the silk fabric
of his hair. I am his sister now,
looking at those flowers coming up.
The Earth’s love, like a light
cutting the darkness
of both our worlds.

<<<(_wane_)

(_wax_)>>>