Gravestones - A Poem by J.A. McCormick

​Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash

Who are you?
A story tell.

Buy why do I ask?
You are cold stone.

A token is enough 
To start imagination
And perhaps cloudy perception 
Is clearer than plain sight.

Somehow this one a century deep
Shines brighter than those not ten years dead.
But a year gone
Is 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 sings
Because it is too sacred for words.

It is the song of children at play
And young men working,
The song of factories and farms,
Of babies nursing
And mothers laughing,
The song of painful shyness
And bold proposals,
Of wise old women
And foolish young ones.
It is the song of painful wrongs
And tearful reconciliations.
It is love and hatred.
It is pigheaded fools
And spineless pushovers.
It carries the full hearted chorus of the triumphant.
And the fearful hiding strains of the defeated.
It is Sunday picnics
And 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.