Storied Ground

I like to

write poems in 

the passenger seat

of my car, parked in the

shade in a cemetery not far, 

nary a sound, stories all around, 

like the stranger named 

Doogan who drowned 

when he rushed into 

a freezing lake to

save a young 

lad going 

down, 

and slipped 

under himself, and

together they swam to the sky. 

Heroes fly free and get an encore.

Once, I heard a story of some long 

departed souls buried on a hill in a Nebraska 

reservation graveyard who complained 

to living loved ones that sprinklers 

and lawn mowers made it hard

to sleep, so please let the

grass be. 

But 

who doesn’t

love the smell of 

a newly mown lawn?

Life grows on. 

By Tom Vandel