I wrote this in 1995 while driving with my brother to the dedication ceremony of my dad's headstone in St. Louis. He died several years ago, peacefully, surrounded by his family. It was Memorial Day Weekend when we got together again to say good bye. My dad was a marine and he defended his country in WWII. He went into electronics after the war and settled down with my mom and had me and my three brothers.
My father died the day after Christmas. We buried him just before 1996. My mom died six years later on their aniversary. My wife's Aunt Rita passed away last month.
I buried a cat today. His name was Bingo and he was @17 years old. He died during the night, quietly. He liked to box your ears. He was ravenous for chicken and cheese. He sprayed a lot! once he was hosing down a bush when both his back legs went in the air! One time our neighbors had a truck load of groceries and Bingo jumped up into the bed pulled out a big dinner roast and pulled it out of the truck bed and pulled it under the house. Yesturday, he couldn't walk very well.
There has been so much death. And, well, I wanted to post this sooner but Bingo needed us.
A Chiseled Stone in a Field of Bone
Makes Note of a Soul of Late
Do we mark our hours
on this earth in days and
minutes span through years yet
all that can be chiseled in the face
of standing stone
are birth and death?
From then to then
tell nothing of the man who lays here
amidst these silent stones.
This shorn granite marker of a man
made so many milestones in me.
It's eve-ing Memorial day: when we
salute they that monumentally
changed the world
for a three day weekend.
The beginning of Summer;
a long springless winter since
we were last here.
I've etched the date in my mind
carving the numbers
12 29 95
between
my own birth and death.
I can share with you my
silent pride in silent men
on the day the government shut down
still
standing sentinel over
Dad's final at ease
and
I'll tell you of the cool air
that day;
too warm for a coat
too cool without
too shivered to stay
as I dropped my dust
Too scared to leave
as the grave-diggers finished their trade.
I'll mark for you many days with the man
( and he only knew me
less than half his life!)
How many days between his
then to then
would he have etched himself?
None are spoke here.
Father never believed in Forever.
He was born, he lived, he would die,
and nothing more.
Yet
he wanted to be scattered across
a lake from long ago, where he and his
boys would fish beneath the Cascade skies.
The greatest ground
Crane Prairie
to be found
Anywherey
will still be around
one hundred years hence;
his ashes into fish
into ducks...
but here he lay.
Tombstones, headstones, sarcophagi
and nothing in between.
And the stonecutters place his name and
birth and death so even those who mark
their days beyond his time can know
of such a man named Mayo.
Yet people will see this polished rock and read
his name yet will not see
his masonry.
They will not see the Masters he culled
into Misters.
They will not know the maiden he crafted
into Matriarch.
They will not sense the minor he created
into Mayo.
His birth, his name, his death
and nothing more.
Though my dad is duly noted within this ground
I can see the stoneman mad at me
because I have no use for his work.
We all have been made
like bricks are laid
and we stand here today, testimonial.
Here, where he lies, and remember
his word, his wisdom,
his days, his ways.
What can angled granite
hewn and moored upon the grave
convey
of the one below
more than I have had
the grace to know
in the way he had made me to be?
I am the son of Mayo
and I build my day between
birth and death
with the tools his days have given;
His monument is his masonry of me.