The deceased leave behind their voices.
Some in shoeboxes
Stacked in the back closet,
Others under creaking steps,
In leafwhisper, water murmur, highway hum.
Most, middle of the night, seek us out
With their quick-and-dead singsong.
Disembodied, tremulous,
Gusting down
Off the pine-sided hill.
An uncle’s high tenor; an aunt’s thick alto.
A whole ragtag church choir from beyond the beyond.
Voices pure as light, light as breath.
We breathe in these voices in our sleep,
Taste these voices in the bittersweet
Draught of dreams. Voices
In the shapes of clouds, voices raining
Down the old mudtrodden hymns. Horse-and-buggy us
Back to that little white church in the woods.
Lay roses on those headstones carved with our names.
Sing out, brethren, in voices
Long-silenced, but still heard, harried
By a north wind from the past.
Let your praises pillow our slumber
And greet us like morning mist.
Hearken us back from our dreams, brethren,
And forward into the light.
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