If You Say It Right It Helps The Heart To Bear It

from Evidence, by Mary Oliver


The comforts
of language
are true
and deep


in a cemetery
in the South,
so many stones
and so many

so small
Sometimes
three or four
in a row.




In this instance:
Eliza May,
Occola,
Joseph.




Can you imagine
the condition
of the heart
of a mother
or a father
watching these plantings?
I cannot.
But I try.




"God taketh
his young lambs home"
is carved there.
A few words




like water
on a stone.
Cool and beautiful
like water on a stone.


for Jayla