Alice Corbin. On the Acequia Madre. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

On the Acequia Madre

By Alice Corbin


From “Red Earth” DEATH has come to visit us today,
He is such a distinguished visitor
Everyone is overcome by his presence—
“Will you not sit down—take a chair?”
But Death stands in the doorway, waiting to depart;	5
He lingers like a breath in the curtains.
The whole neighborhood comes to do him honor,
Women in black shawls and men in black sombreros
Sitting motionless against white-washed walls;
And the old man with the grey stubby beard	10
To whom death came,
Is stunned into silence.
Death is such a distinguished visitor,
Making even old flesh important.

But who now, I wonder, will take the old horse to pasture?	15