Here’s a poem that’s been bouncing around in my head for quite some time now. It’s inspired by my favorite gravestone of all time (yes, i have a favorite gravestone). I’ve been contemplating these concepts for a great deal now. Sometimes concepts are just waiting for the right moment to spring forth- the right triggers to thrust them into tangible reality. This past Christmas just got the ball more intensively rolling for me. So, I guess this one’s time had come. Enjoy!
-Joel
“Lazarus”
I’m strolling in the dark
in this slope side dormitory
there’re silhouettes of bednobs
Rocky headboards towering
Lichen polka-dotted pillows
and mossy covered stones
guarding sleepers who’ve resting
beneath their dandelion covers
They’re McNeals and Carouthers,
Bauers, Millers, Deans,
Greens with two e’s
and Greenes that have three.
Heads are lined up in rows
whole families lay in cots
dirt mattressy collections
each sharing tribal names.
And all alone there sits
midst an empty swath of green
one lonesome simple headboard
since eighteen seventy three
it’s now looking quite neglected
all weather etched and brown
with no cairns of little pebbles
or faded polyester lily
And I’ve decided when I pass
I’d like to be laid into that bed
b’neath the blankets of grey grass
Next to Henry Weber’s head
sleeping soundly with my friend
in his protest all alone
‘gainst his solitary status
with no family of his own
Since, someday when I awake,
at the birth of Re-creation
I’ll be rising right beside him
he won’t dawn in isolation
we’ll be crowning from the womb
No more singing orphaned song
Squeezing through the legs of earth
to a home where all belong
Henry, finally in that day
I’ll tell you all about the nights
‘bout the Easters and the Christmases
when I sat with you for comfort
I sat dreaming at your headstone
in the womb of our cold world
longing eagerly for the epoch
of no more forlorn festive days
no more lonely celebrations
For that Incarnated Baby
who took perfect total strangers
and made brothers out of them
“Sleep” -En pleinair at the Evergreen Cemetery in Ft. Thomas in Gouache on Watercolor Paper- 11x14