A Southern Funeral

by Stewart Jester

Warm, red clay
yields at the weight
of second hand dress shoes.
A white flower dances
down, as if the magnolia
mourns the loss.
A giant among men,
A stoic son in the heat,
slowly crumbles within
as they dig up the earth.

A hollow hymn slips out
as a murmur.
There is no faith.
No strength.
Just the familiar ritual,
of Amazing Grace.

There is no God
in Georgia.
Just tombstones, white flowers,
and strong men made weak
by the forced refrain.

Stewart Jester is a writer out of Richmond, Virginia. With family hailing from Southern Georgia — both Macon (where his great-uncle Buck Melton is a former mayor) and the small municipality of Arlington — many of his pieces focus on the time he spent in the rural South as a child.