Thomas R. Smith

Baptism

My mother’s large, combustible nest of kin,

what a cast of characters they made,

populating my coming-of-age novel.

As if turning ahead to peek at the end,

I see their graves under the dark pines.

The mint-green house by the railroad tracks

passed with Aunt Helen from the family.

Uncle Paul swore a snapshot taken when

we were cleaning it out reveals a ghost

hovering in shadows of the woodshed.

Emptying those closets and drawers, we too

became ghostly.  In that house I was baptized,

washed into the silvery morning of my life.

There my aunts gave their fussy German love,

my grandmother bread, my grandfather prayers.

Wherever I travel, I carry them

with me.  Sleepers under your roof of pine

needles, water connects us.  Long ago

when my heart was most open, you entered.

Wherever else you have gone, you are here.

Thomas R. Smith is a poet and teacher living in River Falls, Wisconsin.  He is the author of several books of poems, including The Foot of the Rainbow, forthcoming from Red Dragonfly Press in 2010.  He is currently a Master Track instructor in poetry at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis