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.