Cricket Hill
 
In fall I walk in old New England graveyards
Among the tilted, lichen-spotted slates -
And touch the time-eroded letters, carved,
Recording long-forgotten names and dates
Of loved ones, and the florid epitaphs
That sing of Father's kindness, Mother's love,
Or Sister's charity, or Child's laugh-
"Rejoicing with the Seraphim above."
And one stone lies as partner with the ground,
Long-fallen, cracked, embedded in the moss;
So, buried twice, the nameless and unfound
Has lost the very monument of loss.
And I for him, or her, or myself grieve,
Amid the whisper of November leaves.
 
 
 
Phone Call
 
 
I live a life that suits a monastery, 
A regimen that might make others blench;
I'm reading all the works of Alighieri,
While polishing my Latin and my French;
I'm reveling in abstract mathematics,
I'm capering with Kant on every page;
My conversations verge on the Socratic;  
I'm listening to Schoenberg and Cage.
Though currently I'm broadening my purview
And following a physical regime;
Religiously adhering to a curfew,
And writing dissertations by the ream; 
I'd happily leave scholarship debased,
To spend these hours studying your face.
 

©1997 Chris Devine

 
 
BACK