Blessed Are Ye Who Weep/ Red Dirt Scholar

Shuffling up to hug us,

one after the other,

with joyous back slaps on an otherwise

quite solemn occasion.

An old crooked hand, full of farm bent fingers

grasped a grieving man’s shoulder.

While the preacher, in his funeral suit, read from the gospels,

his head dipped in concentration,

like a boxer receiving fighting instructions

or a retired school teacher listening to a grown man

recite a poem she taught forty years ago.

So this,

this is what it means to believe,

to have the joy of the LORD,

his hand upon you.

This nodding saint, and

scholar of the fields

knows the grave will never contain him.

Bryce Alan Flurie

10.21.2009

12.13.2009

1.4.2010

Two Funeral Poems

After The Funeral Lunch

As we walked back from the heavy lasagna
and sweet pumpkin pie heavy with spice,
the red dirt lay in clumps after the funeral lunch.

This same soil will fertilize our ashes.
No tombstones or mausoleums for us,
just words on paper,
gelatin silver shadows,
notes lifting to barroom lights.
But the kids rushing through the old farm house door
are the only Ebenezers here.



Blessed Are Ye Who Weep/ Rid Dirt Scholar

Shuffling up to hug us,
one after the other,
with joyous back slaps on an otherwise
quite solemn occasion.

An old crooked hand, full of farm bent fingers
grasped a grieving man’s shoulder.
While the preacher, in his funeral suit, read from the gospels,
his head dipped in concentration,
like a boxer receiving fighting instructions
or a retired school teacher listening to a grown man
recite a poem she taught forty years ago.

So this,
this is what it means to believe,
to have the joy of the LORD,
his hand upon you.
This nodding saint, and
scholar of the fields
knows the grave will never contain him.

BAF
1.4.2010

Sunday Mornings

As the amens rang out
and the hymnals closed,
the ladies began
a percussion, a soft swishing
of painted Jesus fans glued
to curved popsicle sticks.

The crinkling of
King James’ pages.
Mmm hmms, Amens,
Heads nodding in agreement.
A call for the old man
to become new.
The sinner to sanctification,
a rebel to repentance.
Then as elbows planted firmly
on the old walnut alter,
Just As I Am
Without One Plea was mouthed
in a reverent harmony,
a flat tenor behind me
choking back tears.

As I scribbled innocent Blakean poems
and stared at the gorgeous brunette
who years later
became my wife.

BAF

12/06/08
Sunday afternoon
1/13/08
Originally published by www.thematthewshouse.net

And As If The Rain

And as if the rain
would actually settle on the
dry field.
The November anticipation
of deer’s opening day,
glasses of hard cider on Thanksgiving table,
snow on this old road,
coffee in hand,
praying over snowy fields.

The bare limbs are exultations,
hands raised.
My wife chuckles in another room,
like a rich man’s indulgence,
from an old priest.
With this,
we are pardoned.

BAF
12./1/08
1/13/09
7.28.09

Recompense

As sure as the flies at the evening window
are drawn to my light and my wine,
these things are given to us.
The marble feet in the desk drawer,
the tarnished bugle on the book shelf,
an Underwood typer in the closet.
Remingtons on buck’s opening day,
Nikons on family holidays.

The pages my jealous grandfather
made his girlfriend cut out of her diary
that mentioned any other boy but him.
But Grandma, ever the shrewd one,
hid them away and can still
fetch them seventy years later.

She is still waiting
for the roll to be called up yonder,
on the day we’ll all fly away,
after decades spent bringing in the sheaves.

BAF
last day of November 2008

Red Dirt Exegesis

Crickets chirp double time
through September’s open window.
Her long dark hair rests
on an ornamented book of theology.
Could Calvin have been prescient enough to
comprehend a woman predestined to
study crucifixions in skimpy summer clothes?

On this old soil,
waiting for the roll to be called,
attempting to live a corn field aesthetic,
oh so full of the fall, and
reveling in contradictions.

What Your Hands Have Found To Do

A worn King James Bible,
edged with gray duct tape,
rests on the farm house table.
This Word,
planted deeply in rich soil,
a consonance in cornrows.

Leather work boots,
mud caked,
set neatly at the doorsill.
A bowl of corn soup
steams in the November kitchen.
As holy a sacrament
as Samuel’s oil on Saul’s head.

A Hohner harmonica, slid in overall pockets,
combats the clanging tambourines of the Philistines.

The same worn King James Bible,
edged in gray duct tape,
illuminated by a desk lamp.
Hands that turn
the notated pages
and spread the seeds
along the rows,
like the alliteration of alfalfa,
have also sown the mustard seeds of glory
among these pews
every other Sunday for decades.
These hands having truly found
what they are to do.








Bryce Alan Flurie
November 2008