If You Visit The Old Burying Ground
by James Schneider
If You Visit The Old Burying Ground
in Lexington, Massachusetts
You’ll see grief and pride frozen into
a stark loveliness of stone, for families
remembered in street names, an unknown
British soldier, a Harvard student, for men
lying under their heavy titles. You may
wonder at the graves of all the young
mothers beside the small markers for so
many little children, a primer on suffering.
Mark the harsh wisdom of the older stones
set in flying hourglasses and winged skulls,
and stop and read messages chiseled by hands
long moldered to bone. You may have to kneel,
brush aside weeds, and squint to be warned to
behold . . . remember . . . dust. Then notice how
later folks sought to prettify death with carved
0flowers, weeping willows, and cherubs as sweet
as greeting cards. But before you lose heart
over endless loss and our grasping for solace,
before you stroll back to your clever car
parked behind the blank white church,
pause for a few moments and take a long
look at the almost still life of the huge tree
that’s gathered three small headstones into
the embrace of its roots and covered them
half-way up, the way the mothers here would
have hugged to their skirts their little ones.