Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


CROSSROADS' BURIAL (SUGGESTED BY GALSWORTHY'S APPLE TREE) by MARY ATWATER TAYLOR

First Line: GREEN AT THE CROSSROADS LIFTS THE NARROW MOUND
Last Line: AND HER PROUD FEET HAVE FOUND A PATHWAY HOME.
Subject(s): ALIENATION (SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY); DEATH; FUNERALS; ROADS; SUICIDE; ESTRANGEMENT; OUTCASTS; DEAD, THE; BURIALS; PATHS; TRAILS;

Green at the crossroads lifts the narrow mound
Of one who chose by her own hand to pass
And lie in quiet under this bright grass,
A suicide, refused in Christian ground.
We who live on without her singing sound,
Forever silent as the years go by,
Never again shall hear her laugh or sigh,
Never again shall see her, flower-crowned.
But always at this place where two roads cross
She lies incurious in her slender grave,
While those she knew sleep smug in churchyard loam;
Nothing will wake her to our aching loss,
For all her radiant self in love she gave
And her proud feet have found a pathway home.



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