A connection of life and death across generations.

Memorial sleep

Wild roses grip the muddy shoulders
of the Six-Mile Road on Decoration Day,
and despite the sparkling May sun,
the sky is practically dying to descend
in bursting little showers
from dewey clouds that grow to surprise
from the damp, sappy spring of the morning.

The road rises through the stone-arch bridge
where the car passes packed with
peonies and spring dresses and suits
and the living who go to the graves,
full of roast beef dinner to look
at the stones where
great grandma and great grandpa lay,
the same who once knew those pink roses on the Six-Mile too.
You wonder what their lives knew.

So, play tag with cousins, catch fireflies,
then slide into slumber.
Lightning slices the horizon promising
the easy yawning day is growing to a stormy night.
You sleep the depth of childhood, and your time is passing along.

Jerry Engler