Jennie Bireline's Page

A Meeting

In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: "How have you been?"
He grins and looks at me.
"I have been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees."

- Wendell Berry

IN THE GARDEN AT THE WHITE TABLE



In the garden at the white table,

two dead men were sitting in the midday heat.

A branch stirred above them. One of them pointed out

Things that have never been.

The other spoke of a great love

with a special device to keep it functioning

even after death.



They were, if one may say so, a cool

and pleasant phenomenon

on that hot dry day, without sweat

and without a sound. And only

when they… Continue