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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Renewal in Savannah

I will mourn leaving this place.
I wonder where we go
when we die?
When I put on a shirt
and wear a suit for the last time.
I think of all the well dressed people
in Bonaventure Cemetery.
The pretty dresses.
Men shaved with collars.

Why not bury people
like the flowers they are?
Naked.
All outside themselves.
Like winter when the clouds
come through the trees
like silver falling through the branches.
Now the little ones
should have blankets about them,
with flowers and knitted things.
But,
maybe best not to think of that,
or that life has to be in one place.

Why not be born old
and grow young like Savannah?
Wake up and say
it’s time I go to school.
Go out and play with other kids.
Learn things I’ve never learned,
and find my mama and papa.
Grow young,
and one day being born,
I look out the window
and see the moss,
and hear a carousel singing outside.

Published inIndex of all Poems