At the Graveyard

Passing clouds cover and reveal the sun, shadow and light,
shadow and light fall on the rows of gray headstones.

Pines toss in the breeze and shed shreds of bark on the moss carpet.
Black paint bubbles on the rusted rails that run the perimeter.

Each stone is marked with a flower.
I pause to consider such uniformity,
they are getting so good at it; real or artificial?

It’s like this;
Everything comes from the earth, everything returns to the earth.
It’s all real.

There are so many graves here, so many graves everywhere.

It’s like this;
I have seen those eye glasses piled at Auschwitz, the mounds of hair,
but it takes Anne Frank to make it real.

I stop at one stone,
It is the name that gets me.
You know how it is with certain names, like a Lester or a Cecil,
some goofy good-natured loper springs to mind.

             Luther Purdy
September 3, 1881 to April 10, 1945
  None knew thee but to love thee.

Attaboy, Luther. Make it real.