The stone was in the ground, the body,
as though delivered from mere surface,
was out of sight; the unreflective
soil lay over it, and that was
that.

For days, he bore it, grieving sorely
but not despairing; death, whose quiet
approach had more than once already
come near him, to his thinking was not
strange:

the thought was in the grave; it rested
with her, allaying discomposure,
as though by veiling it with knowledge
of what had laid her
flat.

But more than grief befell this mourner,
when some days later, after every
funereal sentiment was settled,
rain drenched her grave as much as any
place else, and stirred into the soil
and in his soul a muddy, heavy
change.

by Amos J. Hunt

This poem first ran in the Autumn 2007 edition of Grub Street Grackle