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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SIX CHINA PIGS IN AN ARKANSAS CEMETERY, by IRENE CARLISLE
First Line: Walking together when the leaves are red
Last Line: Bespectacled and comic, on the loam.
Subject(s): Cemeteries; Graveyards
First Line: Walking together when the leaves are red
Last Line: Bespectacled and comic, on the loam.
Subject(s): Cemeteries; Graveyards
Walking together when the leaves are red,
Where all the local patriarchs lie rotten,
We smiled to think the optimistic dead
Take such precautions not to be forgotten.
Indeed, we said, wherever the grave is dug
She that was lovely, lovely is no longer;
And he that makes acquaintance with the slug,
Though cased in steel, shall find the slug the stronger.
So we went laughing over the doors of death
And read the lofty words on sunken stone,
Tasting exultantly our deep-drawn breath
Among so many breathless -- dust and bone.
Then laughter drowned and the lips had little to say.
We saw the child's grave, freshly turned and bare;
But some more grieved and trusting hand than ours
Had smoothed the soggy earth and set with care
Six china pigs impertinently gay,
Bespectacled and comic, on the loam.
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