FROM THE LAND OF SHADES: CALL AND RESPONSE WITH ELEANOR WILNER by CONSTANCE MERRITT

Their voices rise and carry across the fields
To where she stands, alone in the almost-dark:
@3Red Rover, Red Rover@1, they chant and call her name.

With everything she is she wants to run --
Breaking through the line of arms she'll bring her favorite
Back, and together they will forge another

Chain. Or failing that, they'll take her in,
The body of the fold (O sweet! O warm!)
Moving toward their mothers' calling voices.

Where the others stand she thinks she can see light
(@3Red Rover, Red Rover@1, they chant and call her name);
The darkness gathers round her, thick and total.

It is her wish to run but something checks her:
The dead do not return from the land of shades.
@3Red Rover, Red Rover@1, they chant and call her name.

@3O Dog of Athens O Belle of Amherst
Traveler in Concord and Faun of the Wood
Link arms with her against that mutton light.@1

http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm
@3Prairie Schooner@1 is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which
publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the
prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the
campus-based literary journals.

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