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Smoke
at the grave
marked with a red cross
I roll tobacco
Poems on the topic: cross
Poems on the topic “cross” on Poets.by.
Stabat mater
The mother weeping
on her cross,
the mother who is hungry,
not a bit of meat left
in the house, having
signed things to a thief—
the little mother
is not ashamed
to drink alone.
Love Poem
comb fragility from your hair
as your white steel breasts break the contours
of silvered glass/
Let your mouth move me over rooftops of raininfinitely,
tongue of rose/
nail me
to a cross of down/
Gesture
My arms were always quiet,
Close, and never freed.
I was furled like a banner,
Enfolded like a seed.
I thought, when Love shall strike me,
Each arm will start and spring,
Unloosen like a petal,
And open like a wing.
Oh Love — my arms are lifted,
But not to sway and toss;
They strain out wide and wounded.
Like arms upon a cross.
The Impartial Giver
I who have spent my hands in futile weaving,
And you who flung yours out before the sun,
For all you held, for all my restless grieving,
What have you, more than I have, really won?
My industry has faltered; through your fingers
Your sunlight sifts like finely running sands;
And Time shall bring us, when the last star lingers,
A cross to hold, made of our humbled hands.
Father Malloy
You are over there, Father Malloy,
Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,
Not here with us on the hill—
Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision
And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins.
You were so human, Father Malloy,
Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us,
Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River
From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality.
You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand
From the wastes about the pyramids
And makes them real and Egypt real.
You were a part of and related to a great past,
And yet you were so close to many of us.
You believed in the joy of life.
You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh.
Descanso
Beside this wooden cross
By the cross of the desert cactus.
The coffin-bearers rested:
"Pray for the soul
Of Manuel Rodriguez,"
And remember
That death is the end of life.
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