God is good

Papa died Sunday, and I understood.
All dead white boys say, "God is good."
White tongues hang out, "God is good."
-- Sam Beam of Iron and Wine, "Sodom, South Georgia"


Folk music and new snow,
warm heater vents.
Driving past that office building
(which I both despise and strangely love)
to visit an old friend--
a good friend--
a continent away from his home.

I pass schools and stores, gas stations.
Few cars on the road.
Halfway there I park in a cemetery.
Some graves are decorated with tiny lights,
glowing yellow--
determined beacons of the afterlife.

I think of mortality,
higher powers and purposes,
opportunities and how to squeeze this wondrous world
for each one--
how we must earn them.

I cry, not for death, loss or stagnation,
but for the unknown, unimaginable
walkways that lie broken and perfect and endless
between tonight's empty black skies
and these lighted plots.