Turn at the sign–Galilee Cemetery–
a flat, packed-down dirt road
the weary color of clay
not a person in sight
just fields, blowing dirt fields
dry bones under hard sun.

Turn again where, on the right
there’s a dark puddle big as a pond
The crows standing round it
will startle and scatter in flight
cawing while you keep going.

Ahead there is shade at last
pines, cedars, oaks with moss
shadows over graves in safe family clusters.
They pass the day that way.

Leave on the same pale road
you came in on.

Ann Webster is a retired lawyer who lives in Richmond, Va. and in north Florida. This is her first published poem.