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Edward Clayton Pitt died
Tuesday afternoon at 4:00 p.m.
After his chores were done,
the goats grained, the hives tended to
and when there was time
to porch-sit till supper.
Born 1906, in Ashe County
to Raymond and Delia Pitt,
he was a farmer. Jack of all trades
like any mountain man who makes
a living off the land. At the last,
a grey man in a small rocker -
one his daddy built -
his blue eyes and wide grin
all the light in him.
Ed got grey from fading.
Like his overalls.
Like the unpainted house.
Not the homeplace that lightning took,
but the one Ed built
with lapped boards, right-angled
corners, straight at the
ridgepole as the builder.
He was preceded in death
by his wife Mae
and he is survived by
three sons and a daughter
who live here in town:
So the interment is in the
Good Hope Gardens,
mowed to naked like a shorn lamb,
where the Reverend Stayfinch officiates
in a long gown,
where bronze plaques
decorate each chest the same,
the names so hard to find
in this flat field where
in the rows of urns
plastic poppies sprout.
Up on the ridge
his daddy lies
beneath the brambles reaching
for the fence Ed built
to keep the cows out.
Under a piece of mountain
bone set upright.
Where the white morning glories climb
and the birds sit singing
daylong.
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