[ToC]

 

ELEGY: IN A COASTAL CEMETERY

Evan Klavon

Praise of holly, praise of elm,
in acorn-strewn procession
face the taps of sea’s well,
scions fallen from the mist

           —

you return, a narrow ash
in the soluble mid-ness of afternoon
calling elk by deer names, waisting
a satisfied half-earth pit

           —

'fill me, O dung, O root—
pray, dandelion, take my salt;
I entrust this heaven under sod
to the labor of becoming still'

           —

you say, bruise-lipped
you say, quieted

 

 

 

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These stanzas first arose in a brain waking in Belfast, Northern Ireland, while the title traces some of the mental imagery which accompanied that writing back to a deer-wandered cemetery encountered as a child, I believe in Monterey, California.