“Hemingway’s Grave” by Brandon Fick

You moulder under granite between evergreens

and decades have brought change and stones,

Old Glory cap, pencils, ballpoints, yellow wildflowers,

oceans of ecstasy – Pabst Blue Ribbon,

Woodford Reserve – you drained faster than a desert well.

I speak frankly, Papa, excuse my search

for one true sentence:

            The sparrow sings over graves at dusk.

At Ketchum Cemetery there was no war

to be fought. No mounted marlin, no bells 

to toll. Simply the Sawtooths dwarfing millions

of green grass blades and mossy stones,

ten-thousand foot spires older than ideas,

snow chutes, layers of earthen mass

all that lasts. We cannot endure, I think – 

then know. Wouldn’t you concur?