Linda Pastan, "Unveiling"

[mellicious]

George cemetery
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

This seems very apropos right now.


Unveiling

In the cemetery
a mile away
from where we used to live,
my aunts and mother
my father and uncles lie
in two long rows,
almost the way
they used to sit around
the long planked table
at family dinners.
And walking beside
the graves today, down
one straight path
and up the next,
I don't feel sad, exactly,
just left out a bit,
as if they kept
from me the kind
of grown-up secret
they used to share
back then, something
I'm not quite ready yet
to learn.

(By the way, the tombstone in the picture belongs to a great-aunt - my grandmother's older sister. Note the dates.)

Comments

[ursulahitler.livejournal.com]

I've lost my grandparents, but otherwise my relatives are all still around. That poem scares the dickens out of me, because for some reason I can so clearly picture myself walking through that cemetary someday, visiting all the grownups. The lonesomeness of it is kind of staggering. Still, it is strangely reassuring to think of them enjoying an eternal sunday dinner like that.

[otherwise-nyc.livejournal.com]

That poem was amazing.

Hearing you talk about your family reminds me that there are pluses and minuses to everything; I'm occasionally sad about not having had a big, warm family situation, but that just means my sense of loss is around a different aspect of family -- you're getting your share now.

Take care.

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

I confess I like what the New Orleansians do. All the graves are above ground because the ground is too wet. Most are basically double-deckers. When one dies, one is put in a shroud and put on the top deck. The heat quickly (in a year) decomposes everything but the bones. When the next family member dies, the first one is put in the lower level, and the new body is put on the top one. Over time, the bones of the whole family gather on the lower level and blend together into the dust. I don't mean to be morbid, but there's something comforting about that thought.

Since I don't live in Louisiana, though, I've directed in my will that my executor try to arrange a "green" funeral for me. I don't want to pollute the earth more that I have already! Plus, I also like the idea of my body nourishing a tree or garden.