11. Aunt Lou

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The old lady leaves the old farm house.
A November day.
A ten below overcast gray day.
A chilling silence day.
An everything sleeping day.
Walks to the white mail box,
typical farmers white mail box standing
along the empty road in twig-brown November.
The old lady is thinking of her favorite brother
who ran away from Kingsville for South Africa.
Sixty years gone.
Sixty years without.
The minding love.

Long gone her sister who married an old man
who promised her a bicycle.

The minding love.

She had received a letter saying her brother had died
and his children were sending him back to Kingsville
to be buried with those he left.
The grave prepared, the minister ready.
Opening the mailbox there was a shoe-box.
Opening the mailbox there was a shoe-box.
The old lady standing in gray November,
Holding the brown box in a world disappeared.

The minister, the caretaker, the old lady,
stand over the open grave
surrounding the small box.
Home again!