Judith Quaempts

The Visit

Silence
except for wind
whispering over empty fields.

Silence
but for a ragged V of geese
flying overhead.

Three mule deer graze
a hundred yards away.

I pick my way around rocks
and through weeds.

Silence follows me.

Just inside the gate I kneel
and place three bright pinwheels
on a grassless mound.

Then carefully,
so each message shows,
I press candy hearts into the soil.

Around the white buffalo,
around the eagle with outspread wings
around the toy cars and trucks
that mark his grave.

I'm here, I say.
I'm here.

CP

Judith Kelly Quaempts lives in rural eastern Oregon and is an active member of Internet Writers Workshop. She has been published in 50 to 1, Flash Fire 500, Drunk and Lonely Men, and T-Zero.