Barbara Smith

What This Road Holds

Is a long, long walk in the childhood of April The surprise of pink trillium and a Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Spring warbling creeks and the birds in the redbud, Wet feet and dry throats and the burns on our noses. And a ten-mile excursion on cross-country skis, The buck-toothed beavers watching us move From under or next to their August-built dams, With the deer in the woods, probably up in that thicket On the prickly point overlooking the lake. And a run for no money, just a shabby red sweatshirt And a pair of no longer white Nike sneakers, With the air so clear we could see to Virginia If we wanted to. And that time when we pulled off on the way back from Grafton And climbed tö the rifle range where you reverently showed me Without firing the gun how to take careful aim While holding my breath with support from the railing And deliver a shot to the heart of the bulls-eye And around a white church with a graveyard beside it And on to the lake bed thats still full of géodes And arrowheads and boat ribs and dinosaur bones. Its a road wrapping around us and folding the distance, Wrapping and wrapping and wrapping the hills.

Inside the Fences

The tombstones would be hidden were they six feet further From the curved macadam where the rubber squeals Across the road from all that matters, All thats going on outside their fence, Spiked at two heights and overgrown with greenbrier vines, The steps to the gate so steep That secrets are easily kept From all but the most insistent. Touched by three centuries, Fanny Ramsey, died December 8, 1911, At about 113 years of age, And Mary, mother of David J. Hays, Whose grave bears a higher, larger crown than hers. And a child, a human whose birth and death Have faded into watery stone. And others, names forgotten or unnamed, Related to each other somehow.