You come from a long line of peasants,
you made a history of hunkering down,
of getting by, of making something
out of less than nothing,
of sly subversion behind
placid eyes.

Among your graves,
among the sowers and reapers,
the plowboys and goatherds,
the drunkards and healers,
are the graves of your lords and ladies,
as mute as the sunlight streaming over
hillock and headstone alike.

You haved loved them all,
in their soft flesh, in their joy
at being among the living,
in the depth of their bones
bleached under God knows
what sun or clay.

When you emerge, finally, blinking,
into the stumbling sunlight,
who will find you,
for whom will you pine?