Pine Mountain Cemetery XI
A Lamb’s Tale

Lambs on a tombstone make one cry.
Beneath the fleecy innocence rests
A child missed for years untold.

But not all lambs tell of grief and pain.
Look at the one black stone there left.
The lamb-drawn urn tells a funny tale.

Little Ed crossed an unknown field
Searching for a path to home again.
Sun long set left shadows long, dark.

There. Right behind him he heard a sound,
Scared, he yelled loud and long for someone
Tall to come carry him far from the monster

Ready to grab him and eat him whole.
“Why little one look behind us, lost as you, baby
Lamb, thinks you the monster and he the meal.”

Three years is mighty young to create a myth
That lasts until the man is grown and gone. Lambs
Were always his tease, made him blush and grin.

You’d think his prissy wife might spare him
One last swipe at the fear filled night across
The meadow, under the cliff, far from home.

But no she knew that his fright marked
Him as one of them in a way no one else did.
Walking through we all need a good story.

Good myths hold the clan together, or did
Until more died than were sprouted to pass
Tales from tongue to memory and back again.