Shunned At A Funeral - The Little Girl S God

The sun was low on the frontier line
Gold on the dust, blood red on the pine
My canteen dry, my shadow
Thin, and the ache of the road
Wore deep in my skin.
I sat by a fence
Where the wild grass leaned halfway
Tired and half unseen.
When a
Small voice came from the cottonwood
Shade, sweet as rain on a grave newly made.
A little girl stood with her hands
Folded there with the sunset
Caught in her tangled hair.
She said
"Ma'am, if the trail
Has been hard, could
I tell you a little
About my god?"
I said, "Child, I suppose that
You may." And she smiled like dawn
Breaking over clay.
She kicked at the dust with a little brown shoe.
Then her
Eyes lifted up like the sky
Broke through.