Forgotten Ground Regained
As He Is To Us
Wiry and worn, well-tanned from the task,the gravedigger goes to his goodly workswith a practiced pace, pick and spade.On a slope commanding a modest meadow,he’s put in a potter’s field of his pets;a flock with fates more fleeting than his,ones at his mercy, his will and mood.
Rocks and roots must be cleared from the clay,so he digs deeper, then dutifully fillswith the burden he buries, barrow he tamps.What’s hard on the hands frees up the head;prayers need replies, regrets must be purgedby he who decides when suffering stops.Aloft or aground, God is alone.
Copyright © Ted Charnley, 2021
First published in Blue Unicorn, Nominated for a 2021 Pushcart Prize.
Republished in An Invocation of Fragments (Kelsay Books, 2022) and in Forgotten Ground Regained: A Journal of Alliterative Verse, New Series, Issue 1, Winter, 2024
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