Living Stones: A poem for All Souls' Day

Walking in the cemetery at dusk 

Ethel catches my eye 

 
chiseled deep

granite speaks 

loud as leaves  

speckled crimson, arrowroot and ginger  

gusting in on the breeze 

crunching like trick-or-treat 

wrappers beneath my feet

 
I touch Ethel's years 

1895 to 1957 

with hands chapped red 

from scrubbing pots stuck with fluorescent orange 

mac and cheese  

endless pots  

made from the blue box that’s so 

EASY and 

AFFORDABLE 

I hate it

But these years, Ethel 

1895 to 1957...

you saw two World Wars,  

The Great Depression and so much more

did you lose your husband in the First War? 

your son in the Second? 

and these lambs, nestled in the grass by my feet 

did you weep for them  

when your husband worked the coal mine? 

did you dream of them  

when you hung clothes on the line? 

my brawny sons and bursting pantry call,  

so I must go 

tradition holds I leave a stone, 

but Ethel – I’ve taken one instead