Planting Stones In woody glen, ancient trees arc over seven canted graves: stones planted to honor memory-- What grows here? Do you, Stephen Downing, who passed in 1863 have those who come to honor you? Or Walter Fitzhugh, or James McElroy Simmons? You both died the same day in 1867. Were you friends or strangers? Sarah E. Chambers and infant girl, 1868-- your husband outlived you by mere days. A son, aged three, two weeks later. Did some sickness take you all; was grief too much to bear? Crooked, hunched over tombs, cracked from bitter Michigan winters, barely legible words etched are fading-- did they fade too from memory? Who remembers your existence now aside from this lone wanderer who wonders? Small plot off a footpath, surrounded by a rusted and broken iron fence. No home nearby, no fallen in timbers or shallow dip from earth-dug cellar. Mostly just deer who meander by, a lone cardinal perched atop of Sarah sings early spring song. Such a simple desire-- to be remembered by someone, to feel that even in death we, somehow, go on. Cemetaries, sacred and sacrosanct, are left apart, alone and lonely. Plant no stone over me. I need no grave to fall and crack: plant me under a tree instead. Let my ashes become a part of something living. Let the words I've written stay behind tucked into bookshelves or left on a nightstand show I was here, existed. We are all more than a date carved in stone in some forgotten graveyard. |