Stains

By Theodosia Garrison

1874-1944


The three ghosts on the lonesome road
         Spake each to one another,
"Whence came that stain about your mouth
         No lifted hand may cover?"
"From eating of forbidden fruit,
         Brother, my brother."

The three ghosts on the sunless road
         Spake each to one another,
"Whence came that red burn on your foot
         No dust nor ash may cover?"
"I stamped a neighbor's hearth-flame out,
         Brother, my brother."

The three ghosts on the windless road
         Spake each to one another,
"Whence came that blood upon your hand
         No other hand may cover?"
"From breaking of a woman's heart,
         Brother, my brother."

"Yet on the earth clean men we walked,
         Glutton and Thief and Lover;
White flesh and fair it hid our stains
         That no man might discover."
"Naked the soul goes up to God,
         Brother, my brother."

DayPoems Poem No. 1225
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1225.html">Stains by Theodosia Garrison</a>

The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor

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