New Covenant Bound

Making Camp

46 Making Camp Crickets stuttering among the pond reeds once blessing the harvest day now trying to call back the conjure words. White dove once at a window now grieving pine to pine. Gray thin of moon fading in deepening dusk blue — the light they say the dead see by. I raise my tent beside the still water make a bed of rusted needles gather black bones of wood for fire, wondering which of these is the token that will gain me passage which the little offering that will release me. 47 " In one of the graves at Woodson Chapel, they found a pearlhandled dagger. In one of the graves in St. Stephens, they found a bag of gold coins. Somebody said they were Spanish. One of the graves at Bethlehem Church had already been emptied. There was nothing in it. In Nickell, they found two brothers buried in cast iron coffins, each with a little window at the face. They’d laid out a new cemetery in New Covenant, and that’s where most were taken. We had no idea where we were going to end up, so that’s where we had them move Papa, along with the rest of the family. Looking back now, it seems like a sign. If the family had somewhere else they wanted one buried, the TVA would try to do it for them, up to twenty miles away. If they couldn’t find any family to speak for one, they just left that one there. So in the end, they gathered some together, and scattered others here and yon, and left a few behind. I do believe that when the good Lord comes to raise the dead, he’ll do a somewhat better job of it. ...