August 7, 2003
My brother and my sister shade their eyes
against the noonday glare. My cousins stroll
among the graves. These Grant Wood hills,
rich now with corn and soybeans,
seem to be just the place to set
this marble shoebox
deep in the earth, next to my mother's,
this earth that's full of relatives:
grandparents, uncles, aunts, the infants too,
some that lived long enough for names, some not,
each generation giving ground to others,
hidden and peaceful, like the family farms
down at the end of narrow shaded lanes
where tractors doze and trees stand tall and green
dreaming the summer into autumn.