Gravestones

Who are you?A story tell.Buy why do I ask?You are cold stone.A token is enough To start imaginationAnd perhaps cloudy perception Is clearer than plain sight.Somehow this one a century deepShines brighter than those not ten years dead.But a year goneIs plenty to silence ingratitude.Their silence speaks to me here.And my steps slow…Listen heart. Bow soul.And there from down beneath the sod,Deeper than six feet down,Their music plays.It is the old sacred song, The song that only silence singsBecause it is too sacred for words.It is the song of children at playAnd young men working,The song of factories and farms,Of babies nursingAnd mothers laughing,The song of painful shynessAnd bold proposals,Of wise old womenAnd foolish young ones.It is the song of painful wrongsAnd tearful reconciliations.It is love and hatred.It is pigheaded foolsAnd spineless pushovers.It carries the full hearted chorus of the triumphant.And the fearful hiding strains of the defeated.It is Sunday picnicsAnd family reunions.It is the touch of another person.It is kindness.And hurt.It is devotion.And treachery.It is…The life song.And here it plays most clearly.Apparently the dead know something of life,For they sing to me here.But I must go now.I cannot linger all day at temple.For the sacred song awaits my own refrain,And I must write my own lines Before my day of life is through.