Aaron Hatfield

Better than granite, Spoon River,         Is the memory-picture you keep of me         Standing before the pioneer men and women         There at Concord Church on Communion day.         Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youth         Of Galilee who went to the city         And was killed by bankers and lawyers;         My voice mingling with the June wind         That blew over wheat fields from Atterbury;         While the white stones in the burying ground         Around the Church shimmered in the summer sun.         And there, though my own memories         Were too great to bear, were you, O pioneers,         With bowed heads breathing forth your sorrow         For the sons killed in battle and the daughters         And little children who vanished in life's morning,         Or at the intolerable hour of noon.         But in those moments of tragic silence,         When the wine and bread were passed,         Came the reconciliation for us -         Us the ploughmen and the hewers of wood,         Us the peasants, brothers of the peasant of Galilee -         To us came the Comforter         And the consolation of tongues of flame!