"A Place" by Robert Schultz / "Ancestral Altar" by Binh Danh

A PLACE

He makes altars for the lost, a place
To pray and to question the dead.
He makes portraits out of sun and leaves.

To pray and to question the dead,
I sit before ancestral altars.
They have questions of their own.

I sit before ancestral altars
And the dead have questions:
“How could this have happened?”

I have gazed for hours at their startled faces.
He makes portraits out of sun and leaves,
Builds altars for the lost, a place.

-- Robert Schultz