Delmarva Review: Just Beneath the Surface by Beth Oast Williams

Author’s note: I’ve written about the death of my mother, and most recently, my father. Yet so often, I keep most of my vulnerability “just beneath the surface,” like a grave is just beneath the cemetery ground. This poem is an attempt to contrast humans’ desire for permanence with the idea of letting nature take its course. It’s a call to celebrate our return to the earth.

Just Beneath the Surface

The cemetery carries bones
in its pockets,
and you trapeze its perimeter
head down, afraid
of what pulls your swing.

Your grip, even tighter
over cold blocks of granite,
their careful carvings failing
to explain why your father
stopped and you did not.

You once arranged silk flowers
to stand at attention
above his head, a salute
to manmade permanence, as if God
never knew forever.

Forget what the ground
feels like on your knees.
The sole of your loafer,
like a coffin’s seal,
protects you from rain.

Crepe myrtles in their pushback
to death drop notes in your path,
softly, and too quietly for you
to hear the rattle of change
just beyond your grasp.

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Beth Oast Williams is a student with the Muse Writers Center, in Norfolk, Virginia. Her poetry has appeared in or is upcoming in Lou Lit, West Texas Literary Review, Wisconsin Review and Glass Mountain. Her poetry was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2019.

Delmarva Review is designed to encourage ongoing literary excellence from writers when many commercial publications are closing their doors. It selects the best of evocative poetry and prose from thousands of new submissions annually. The journal is supported in part by a grant from the Talbot County Arts Council with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org.