Hemingway’s Shotgun

His stone stands stoic, crowded and gray,
Shoved into a sleepy cemetery,
Squashed, as in life, between sister and wife.

The yew trees he planted prosper nearby.
They hold memory more truly, as do
The dew-drenched hamlets, the foggy farmwalls,
The hedges and long lakes, the bogs and ghylls,
The moss-green mountains and the cloudstill sky.

I marvel how his thick poetic thought
Has soaked the grass of the entire earth,
Strong drink for hearts in need of health and growth.
Am I a leaf on this rich highland field?
I will write, and walk, and plant trees, and hope.

(Eric D. Lehman is a professor of English at the University of Bridgeport, CT, and has published poetry, fiction, essays, and travel stories in dozens of journals, including The New Formalist, Moria, Mastodon Dentist, Canopic Jar, Switchback, Entelechy, Identity Theory, Hackwriters, and Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal.)