Afterwards

By David Baker b. 1954 David Baker

A short ride in the van, then the eight of us

there in the heat—white shirtsleeves sticking,

the women’s gloves off—fanning our faces.

The workers had set up a big blue tent

to help us at graveside tolerate the sun,

which was brutal all afternoon as if

stationed above us, though it moved limb

to limb through two huge, covering elms.

The long processional of neighbors, friends,

the town’s elderly, her beauty-shop patrons,

her club’s notables. . . The world is full of

prayers arrived at from afterwards, he said.

Look up through the trees—the hands, the leaves

curled as in self-control or quietly hurting,

or now open, flat-palmed, many-fine-veined,

and whether from heat or sadness, waving.

Biography

Though he is known primarily as a poet of the Midwest, David Baker was born in Bangor, Maine in 1954. He spent his childhood in Missouri and attended Central Missouri State University before receiving his PhD from the University of Utah. He has won fellowships and awards from the Poetry Society of America, the Pushcart Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Currently a Professor of English . . .

Continue reading this biography