Harry

I made a detour to walk through the cemetery
that always puts me in a pensive, forgiving mood
most of the graves were older, no death dates past the 1980s
Harry was born in 1812 and died in 1898

I imagine a good life from an idyllic time
a piano in the parlor, fresh vegetables and
cow milk free from hormones
before there were motorcars or aeroplanes
television, telephones, the internet
just barely overlapping
the introduction of radio and electrification

but I can also imagine being born
into the 1918 flu pandemic, slavery,
the Civil War, racism, the Underground Railroad,
the Seminole Wars, Native American removal,
Reconstruction, disenfranchisement, segregation,
the Spanish-American war, and lynchings,
woven through his life

and I imagine a good life for Harry
and a shit life for so many others

made a detour to walk through a cemetery
that always puts me in a pensive mood
today I am not forgiving

[RK, 5/7/23]


Facing the Same Way

I never thought of this before
but the graves in cemeteries almost always face the same way.
How neat and orderly.
Like desks in my old grade schools and high schools.
Then thinking if neat and orderly desks,
(I’ve sat in some that were so old they were bolted to the floor),
are our preparation for death.
Is that what I was subtly and subconsciously absorbing all those years?

[RK, 5/7/23]