In Time of Drouth

The sun this morning is of no avail,

Shining upon a land that cannot cast

One sparkle back. The walls are dead with dust;

The maples do not lift a single leaf;

And all of the way to the village, down our slope,

The meadows have forgotten being green. 

Yet look to the left a little. There is brightness.

There, in the angle of two ancient fences,

Dark tall cedars spread their pleasant boughs

Over a few white gravestones that the sun

Now catches full. You see them flash and smile.

Only the dead this morning are not old.