Aaron HatfieldBetter than granite, Spoon River,Is the memory-picture you keep of meStanding before the pioneer men and womenThere at Concord Church on Communion day.Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youthOf Galilee who went to the cityAnd was killed by bankers and lawyers;My voice mingling with the June windThat blew over wheat fields from Atterbury;While the white stones in the burying groundAround the Church shimmered in the summer sun.And there, though my own memoriesWere too great to bear, were you, O pioneers,With bowed heads breathing forth your sorrowFor the sons killed in battle and the daughtersAnd 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 ComforterAnd the consolation of tongues of flame!
Better than granite, Spoon River,Is the memory-picture you keep of meStanding before the pioneer men and womenThere at Concord Church on Communion day.Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youthOf Galilee who went to the cityAnd was killed by bankers and lawyers;My voice mingling with the June windThat blew over wheat fields from Atterbury;While the white stones in the burying groundAround the Church shimmered in the summer sun.And there, though my own memoriesWere too great to bear, were you, O pioneers,With bowed heads breathing forth your sorrowFor the sons killed in battle and the daughtersAnd 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 ComforterAnd the consolation of tongues of flame!