Poet 
: 8
Beneath the cottonwoods’ skeletal sigh,
adobe walls cradle the ache of the sky.
A cradle once rocked where the Virgin River runs thin—
now dust claims the hymns where a schoolhouse stood in.
Windows, gap-toothed, howl hymns unsung,
their shattered psalms cling to ropes long unstrung.
Footprints linger in mud turned to stone,
names etched in whispers on a grave’s sun-bleached bone.
The orchards grow wild with the weight of the years,
their roots claw the earth, drinking saltwater tears.
At dusk, shadows stitch through the sagebrush and thorn—
the ghost of a plowman still calling the dawn.
The mesa keeps vigil, its sandstone lips sealed,
holding secrets the floodwaters never revealed.
Moonlight sifts soft through the rafters’ decay—
Grafton’s bones breathe, but the living stay away.