Thorns

We buried Dad a month ago;
The month was long, the grief is slow:
A briar-patch in thorny soil,
Producing life with mortal coil
Around its stem, a pain that chokes
My life to death and which provokes
A cry within my shadowed night--
That God would set the world aright
And take my thorns from side and ground
And fashion them in royal crown,
Put death to death, to bear this curse;
That He would make this month reverse,
And I would hear it said of Dad,
"He lives, he lives, he is not dead."