Carter

"You cannot write poetry about the death-stiffened baby in his mother's arms, staring at the jolting sky with eyes that will not close; while his mother walks.
You cannot sing songs of the father laying down the burden of his wife's corpse, to lie by it through the night and to rise and carry it again in the morning- and tell his oldest son to carry the body of his youngest. And do not look...nor speak...nor cry...nor remember the mountains."


August 20, 1996