Three Psalms of Burial

1  Fog and lichen over time
broke the great mountains into pieces
carried down by tiny streams.                       

And creeks joined rivers,
and granite turned to soft kaolin
left in clay beds just below the rapids.

Worn hands dug it up, worked it
into pottery, inscribed and fired
into stoneware jugs.   

2  When night burials came,
circles of secret hands in the woods
stirred blessings into the dirt. 

They settled their coffins in the soft
soil of minerals and decaying leaves.
They laid jars inscribed with poetry
to remember their dead.

Above ground, stones from the fields
marked nameless these quiet places.

3  Even mountains and gravestones decay.
Even polished markers in churchyards
dissolve when fog soaks granite
and lichen sends threads into the cracks. 

Even names engraved all erode. 
But legacy lives in books of the dead,
passed on in code to our heirs.                                 

May we stir blessings into soil
to grow green beyond our graves
when lichen covers rocks,
wearing away our names, leaving us
in quiet fields of the forgotten.                      

Two lifetimes ago, Catherine performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. You can find her work in Pank, Deep Water Literary Journal, and 7th-Circle Pyrite. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Kelsay Books