Silverfish Lichen Poem by thomas mofford

Silverfish lichen Burma India Theologs Chapel Cemetery missionary centenary

Mouthed pipes ashes to ashes dust to dust

Opened held books Kafka-looks beetle-brows shoeboots

White shirts ties vests bodies rest backs lap lichen headstones

Mersham pipe person scans book others glare


Four-foot-leveled-tripod-photog looks

Four-transient-soul-searching-suffering-selves

Before sixteen TRANSIENT memorial-lichen-tombstones

Sinking dissolving fall-grass bare trees

Leonard Wood Monument granite Corinthian pillar marble Gothic tower

Bowdoin BROAD AND REVERENT SPIRIT

Oliphant Abiel Pearson Ford Martenez Draper Pratt Griffin

Parker Moore Patience Rowley 'I am the way and the light.'

Egbert Coffin Smyth Elizabeth Bradford Dwight Smyth


'I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.'

Missionary-time-centenary seminary library Roper Rabbit Pond

Secluded-knoll missionaries walked talked

KNOWN IN MANY LANDS

Adoniram Judson Watt Mills Newall Hall Richards

' First American Society for Foreign Missions'

'Their words do follow them.'

PERMANENT

L I C H E N S I L V E R F I S H


THOMAS F. MOFFORD