plow fields where stories begin
and hope fires more than a flicker
cornered in a kerosene lamp,
burnt in the ache of night,
a place for a soul to grow good
in each man, where no one dies
in the street, but leaves in his sleep,
when the moon lights the way
and crickets announce
his coming to the next life.
— Judith Bader Jones
Published in Moon Flowers on the Fence, Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, Kentucky, 2010.
Judith Bader Jones is a founding member of Whispering Prairie Press, and a poetry editor for Kansas City Voices, 2001-2008. Her collection of short fiction, Delta Pearls received The William Rockhill Nelson 2007 Fiction Award. Finishing Line Press published Moon Flowers on the Fence, June 2010. The Language of Small Rooms, a chapbook of poems will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2011.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 
Beautiful. My husband passed away one week ago and I do think of his death here as
his entrance to heaven, a place of peace and beauty.
Thank you!
Pat Waldron, Redding, CA
You do have a way with words, Judith, and this poem backs that up. I especially like it because it is about farmers, the backbone of the breadbasket.