Manzanitas Poems | Examples

Fred King 1915 One Month

Fred King

1915 (One Month)

Welcome to Mt. Olive.

Come inside.

Don’t be afraid of us ghosts.

Now come down the southern lane,

Keep going past the dense walnut trees,

Past the Morris and Bangle graves,

On to the far left corner,

Hidden by the manzanitas and the monkey flowers there;

See the cracked slabs of cement in the gloom?

See the names of the dead babies scrawled there?

Scrawled with a rusty trowel.

This is the Potter’s Field.

This is the grave of the dead babies.

This is the island of the fragile candles

That never felt the flames of life and love.

Genuflect to us, the dead babies!

And bow down to your God!

I know nothing of your earth,

But I do know 

It is a fearful thing,

 To fall into the hands,

Of a living God.