Wake

I don’t know much about

the world you grew up in,

or how you grew up in it,

other than horse drawn buggies

and one-room schoolhouses.

But you’ve told me the stories

like the one, when you were a little girl,

that made you believe in God:

how your uncle,

said that when he went he knew

a great heavenly host was coming to get him.

On the night he died

the stars fell from the sky

and danced around on the roof

of your little country house.

You tried to speak

but your dad, his wide, tearful eyes

reflecting the firelight, clasped his giant

hand over your mouth

and whispered to you,

to keep very quiet.

That you were in the presence

of something he didn’t understand.