EDGES

EDGES

Just beyond the prairie road

corn rows swallowed a town,

         whole

         towns—

                  people,                                         

who left themselves in a graveyard.

         Ancestors, concentrated in a square,

         conveniently located for those who care. 

Nod your head as you drive by

or stop and tell the old folks “Hi.”

Our families settled here –

         then frontier –

to spend lifetimes

         carving edges . . . in the ground,

Setting out

         whom they could become

         and where they could be found…

                  safe…

         from the raiders

                  they invaded.

There was Jeremiah’s farm –

         full –

         of the grounding tools

                  that plowed and raked their lives together,

                  surrounding them with names . . . homes

                            . . . and fences. 

         Full of kids

                  straining to get out

                  and breathe America’s chances.

Then

they buried each other.

The cemetery,
a church yard once,

punctuates a sea of corn whose annual tide creep

         challenges their edges’

         integrity and symmetry.

We are halted by their sentinel:

         Plaqued words on a pedestal

         speak of a wooden church burned long ago,

         Indian wars

                  and the Farrell’s store.

We linger to honor those who spent a lifetime

         building lifelines to our future

by tending through their death-time

         their place between the edges,

         keeping them safe from today’s invaders:

                  This year, corn,
                   last year, beans,

and by taking them with us.

For here, under our feet, only part of their journey ended.

Settlers continue their settling

         into the earth,

         our minds,

         our stories.

We travel today,

         unsettled raiders,

absconding with 
then rewriting family stories,

ungrounded tools

         for carving modern edges.

Who are we?

And who were they?

What did the family do?

When?

Daddy, tell me the story again.

Dennis R. Keefe

July 28, 2005
April 18, 2015