A Mennonite with a pitchfork
In the darkest night of nights
Stumbles through the graveyard
Lone lantern offered light
Beneath tall graveyard ghosts
Martyr blood cries from the ground
Dead and yet still alive
Spirits dancing ‘round. Dayvid

Recovering Old-World
Place names, River Brethren,
Mennonite bones become part
Of the land, evolving from places
Of noncomformity and exile. Sage

No fancy frills, just simple lives
Of those who've gone before
With planted feet in muddy soil
Recalling stakes of angry fire
No words of hate, no striking back
The graveyard harbors peace. Dayvid
 
Transplanted names from
Mother Colonies, Jakob,
Abraham, Helena, Maria,
Zyleene, the etching of family
Names on Mennonite tombstones;
Friesen, van Delden, Dettweiler,
Scratched with a nail, unfamiliar
script of Old Colony Mennonites,
God knows where the dead lie. Sage

Crescent moon glows in the night
Shining down peace and Light
To those buried there within the walls
Of the graveyard on the hill. Dayvid
 
Within the walls, liturgy, a quiet
sermon, still legible, etched Bible
verses embedded in full with sheaves
of wheat, bowed in prayer, the Mennonite
with a pitchfork, his lone lantern offered
light guiding the agricultural way of life,
an instantly recognizable icon, a horse-drawn
rack piled high with hay and fat cattle grazing,
the Mennonite with a pitchfork makes his
nightly offering of beer and braided bread,
tomorrow's another day. God is so amazing. Sage