What We Died For
        Things great and strong dwell below.
        Things soft and weak dwell above.
                        —Lao Tzu

Like the summer fires that blackened the mountain,
a virus spread, burrowing into the dead carcasses

of bear and deer. Crows picked at the tainted meat
and flew with the disease to the valley. With each death,

before the bodies stiffened into planks, we kneaded
forearms and calves, pressed thumbs into corded

back muscles, bending legs so knees touched chest.
In April, when the soot-covered earth softened,

we dug round holes to fit seed-corpses to the crumbling edges.
We prayed as we took turns with the shovel, a liturgy

of vanishing names in the book of lost species:
elm and chestnut and ash. Now in the charred air,

we ask those who remain to return to the burial ground,
to make note in the ledger if any tree sprouts

from the bodies we planted.

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Copyright © 2021 Todd Davis All rights reserved
from The South Carolina Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission