Real Toads Tuesday Platform: Country Burial

This is posted for Real Toads Tuesday Platform.

Country Burial
A Cairn –
Placing a few rocks one on top of the other,
dug from the hard red clay.
My mother’s ashes reside here,
in the country cemetery
nestled in her mother’s grave.
I drove the several hours down to Bahama
(buh-hay-muh)
to the Mount Moriah Church –
where most of our ancestors lay.
The first one laid to rest was my
great-times-many grandmother –
buried with her infant son on her breast.
Since 1790. A long time.
My mother is the most recent.
I dug the hole,
wrestling with the drought hard ground
rusty red…the blood of the soil
makes good tomatoes, my great-grandfather said.
I poured her ashes into the hole
and filled it back with the chunks of dirt.
then all the rocks that I dug out
I placed in a pile.
I left my mother’s ashes there.
But I brought some of the soil back with me –
in a shoebox along with some rocks.
And the tomatoes grown in that red soil!
So tangy they jump off the plate and slap you
across the face before you can stick a fork in ‘em –
no passive sweet tomatoes grown in this dirt.
Mama would be pleased.